


Those Who Play With Fire

by Forbidden_Stilinski



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Nogitsune, Sheriff Stilinski’s Name is Noah, post 3b, supernatural Stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-01-31 04:49:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21440482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forbidden_Stilinski/pseuds/Forbidden_Stilinski
Summary: What makes a family? Is it one parent or two, multiple children or a single child, is it the mini-van in the driveway, is it the comfort that comes with a home? Noah and Stiles are faced with a tough decision when their family home is burned to the ground. Do they move away from Beacon Hills, or accept help from someone that neither of them trust?
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 28
Kudos: 132





	1. We Lost Everything

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! It’s been a while since I’ve written fan fiction and I’m pretty sure this is my first Teen Wolf fan fiction. This is my NaNoWriMo project for 2019, and I hope you all enjoy it!

**CHAPTER ONE**

<strike>we lost everything</strike>

The snow is silent around them as they watch everything they had ever worked for burn to the ground. They watch as men in yellow try to force the dominant flames from eating what remains, but it feels like for every flame that goes out, another comes alive, ready to destroy everything in its path. When the world around them goes quiet and dark, the feeling gross even more surreal. They stand on the other side of the street, their cars parked in their neighbours driveways – their neighbours way of helping out. They watch as the roof moves and caves in a little more, as the glass that shattered earlier decides to turn into even more pieces. Their house, their home, is a unfixable puzzle. Half the pieces have been burned to a crisp. The other half can’t be bought. 

  
Noah looks at their home, its destroyed black mass, with disbelief, and the feeling that he was on the verge of a breakdown. His son, however, stared at the house as if it were all a dream, and that he would wake up any moment and it would be fine. He stared at the house blankly. 

  
Neither of them could truly believe the house was gone.

  
“Sheriff Stilinski,” one of the firemen shouted, moving over towards the two of them. Stiles seemed to snap out of whatever dream he had been having and looked at the house with wide, teary eyes. He looked at his dad quickly before heading towards his Jeep, opening the driver seat door, and sitting there, looking toward the house still. 

  
“Y-yes?” Noah stammered, turning his attention away from his son and back towards the fireman. He remembered the fireman – his name was Brodie Jamison. He had trained to be an officer for the sheriff’s department before deciding that police work just wasn’t for him. He’d heard two years ago that Brodie had decided to follow his dream of becoming a firefighter instead. It was good to see the rumour had been true, but Noah wished he had learned it in a different situation.

  
“I’m so sorry about your home, me and the rest of BHFS tried to get here as fast as we could,” he said, sounding genuinely apologetic.

  
“That’s not your fault, son,” Noah said, trying to put on a brave face, he channeled his sheriff voice, “do you know what started it?”

  
Brodie shook his head, “not yet, but we have some of the guys in there now trying to investigate. A lot of fires get started with faulty heating around this time of year – have you had any electrical work done recently?”

  
Noah turned back around for a second, to find Stiles resting his forehead against his steering wheel, his hands ten and two, looking down into his lap. His shoulders were shaking slightly. 

  
He faced Brodie again, shaking his head, “no, nothing done since last year. We’ve used the heating since then.”

  
Brodie nodded, “we’ll find out what caused it – you have my word. I still remember the favour you did for me a few years ago Sheriff. I will work my hardest on this case-.”

  
“That’s sweet kid,” Noah said kindly, though his voice shook as he said it. It was cold and he was in his pyjamas and his house had just burned down and he only got to save so much until it was too dangerous to stay, “but I don’t think anything sinister happened. Don’t exert yourself too much – I’m just glad me and my son are okay.”

  
Brodie nodded, gave his old boss a smile, and walked back towards the fire truck that was parked awkwardly on the curb near the house. 

  
Noah turned around and now headed to his sons’ car. The window was up, but he could still hear his son crying inside. It broke his heart.

  
He opened the door, and rested a calloused hand on his sons’ shoulder. His son jumped and looked at him with tears clinging to his eyelashes. His face red. 

  
“It’s okay,” Noah said. He was used to being in charge in the face of total disaster and devastation. But, it was hard when it was directly affecting him too, he had to admit. He just hoped, that for his sons sake, that his hope was authentic enough to comfort him. To make his son feel like that there were plans in place – that there would be somewhere for the two of them to go after this. That they would get through this. 

  
“I don’t know what happened-,” Stiles said, hiccuping, “one minute I was sitting on the floor and the next minute, I-I.”  
“They’re going to investigate it,” his tone was warm. He didn’t want Stiles to have a panic attack, not now when the boy didn’t have the comfort of their home to help him, “it’s okay. We’ll find somewhere to stay for the night. They know how to contact me. We’re going to be okay-.”

  
“But I-.”

  
“No buts,” Noah said sternly, “we’re alive. That is what matters here.”

  
Stiles sighed and nodded sadly, before turning back to the house. Smoke still came pouring from it, going in different directions, towards the neighbours next door, who were out the front of the house in their dressing gowns, towards the back neighbours, who had come to their street to see what was going on. Everyone in the street kept looking between the house, Noah and Stiles, with looks of pity and concern on their faces. 

  
Noah hated it. 

  
“You told Scott yet?” Noah asked. 

  
Stiles shook his head, looking towards the window of what used to be the upstairs part of their house – where his bedroom would be, “no…I left my phone in there…”

  
Noah grabbed his phone out of his pocket, “I’m going to call Melissa, okay? You stay here.”

  
He made his way over to his own car, the sheriff cruiser, he’d had the thing for about ten years now. He remembered how originally he had been so uncomfortable in it. It hadn’t felt like his car. Now, he sat on the hood of the car and looked for Melissa McCall’s number in his phone’s contacts. It was late, or early depending on your perspective. 3.30am. Stiles had discovered the fire at 3.10am. 

  
Noah prayed the woman was awake, or if she had a shift at the hospital, on her break.

  
“Hello?” Melissa answered on the second ring, sounding concerned immediately. 

  
“Hey,” Noah said, realising now just how tired he was, “I know it’s a bad time-.”

  
“Is there something wrong?” Melissa asked, the panic in her voice rising slightly.

  
“Yeah,” Noah said, looking back towards the house. Two firefighters were walking out of the house, shaking their heads while another two walked into what used to be the entrance, “there was a fire…the house went up and…I-.”

  
Melissa gasped and immediately asked whether Noah and Stiles were okay, which he said they were perfectly fine. 

  
“I just need a place to stay, just for the rest of the night while I try and sort out some things-.”

  
“Scott said that Stiles can share his bed. I can go make the spare bed up-.”

  
“No, no, the couch is fine,” he said, “I don’t want you going to too much hassle, it’s three in the morning.”

  
“I’m aware,” was all Melissa said. Noah swore that he heard a cupboard open in the background.

  
“We’ll be there as soon as the fire department leave.”

* * *

  
“We didn’t find anything unusual, but no sign of what caused it at all,” Brodie said, looking a little perplexed, “do you give us permission to turn this over to another department, or your department?” He asked, holding a clipboard now. It looked comical, being held by Brodie’s large gloved hand. 

  
“Where do I sign?” Noah grumbled, rubbing his eyes.

  
The neighbours had finally had enough of the nights entertainment and had retired to their respective homes, much to Noah’s relief. He didn’t like him, his son, or his destroyed home being a spectacle. 

  
“Thanks,” Brodie said, taking the clipboard back, “have you got accomodation for the night? I have a spare room-.”

  
Noah shook his head before Brodie could finish, “thank you, really – but I’ve already contacted a friend. My son will hopefully be a little less anxious there.”

  
Brodie nodded and looked towards Stiles, who was now fiddling with something in the front seat of the Jeep, “please, don’t hesitate to call me if you need any help – with anything.”

  
The smell of smoke was all that could be smelled all through the street. He could still feel heat radiating from the ruins of his home. It terrified him slightly, and he was so tempted to ask Brodie to stay the entire night in the street, make sure nothing went up in flames again. But, that was illogical. Noah’s own anxiety playing mean tricks on him. He nodded, gratefully, and headed back towards Stiles’ car. 

  
“You ready kiddo?” Noah asked, opening the door once again. Stiles had been fiddling with the zip on a sleeping bag that he had left in the backseat of his Jeep.

  
“Uh, for what?” Stiles asked nervously, throwing the sleeping bag back in the backseat. 

  
“We’re staying with Melissa and Scott for the night,” Noah said, playing with the lock on the door absentmindedly, “we’ll try and get some sleep and tomorrow, I’ll try and figure something out for us. Worst comes to worst, I’ll ask Melissa whether you can stay there for a few months while I-.”

  
Stiles shook his head, “n-no. I’m staying with you.”

  
Noah tried to give him a reassuring smile. He could tell Stiles was still scared. 

  
He told Stiles to meet him there, and to be careful on the road – that he didn’t think he could handle another tragedy right now, which they both chuckled at, yet felt the hurt of the situation.

  
Noah had bought that home. He had worked his ass off to get enough money to buy it, and yes it had had it’s moments – shitty pluming, thin walls, cold nights because the insulation was awful – but it had been their home. That house had been bought with the intention of raising a family – admittedly with more than one child. Stiles’ height had been measured on the wall next to the fridge, every year since he was three. 

  
There were so many things he was going to miss about that house.

  
How was he going to fix this?

  
They left at 4.03AM.

* * *

They got to the McCall house at 4.18am. The front light, the lounge room light and the upstairs light that Noah and Stiles both knew was Scott’s room, were on. When Noah had gotten there, Stiles was already standing at the front door, talking to Scott while Melissa gave him a hug – Stiles shoulders were still shaking and the way that Stiles stood worried Noah greatly. It looked like the kid was on the verge of a panic attack.

  
Noah walked up to them after locking his car up. Melissa stopped hugging Stiles and turned to look at Noah. He gave her a grateful, tired smile. 

  
“Are you both okay?” Melissa asked, looking the two of them up and down, looking for any injuries.

  
“Yes,” Stiles said, “we got out in time.”

  
His voice was small, quiet, and his eyes were downcast. Noah didn’t say anything about it. Hopefully Scott would be able to get him to calm down a bit when he went to bed. 

  
They all walked into the house, where Noah could smell coffee and the scent of some type of incense. They all headed to the dining table, where sure enough, there were three mugs of coffee and a cup of tea. 

  
“The tea is for you Stiles,” Melissa said quickly, swapping the mug of coffee that was in front of where Stiles had chosen to sit, “I don’t think you need too much caffeine.” 

“Tea has caffeine too,” Stiles muttered, taking the tea gratefully regardless.

When they were all sitting at the table, their respective mugs in front of them, Scott started asking a billion questions. Stiles didn’t seem to be much in the mood for conversation, and instead just looked into his mug, while Noah tried to answer everything he could. He told them he had no idea how the fire started, nor did Stiles, but Stiles was the one that had discovered the fire.

  
“They can’t even figure out where in the house the fire started,” Noah said, sounding more and more tired as he spoke, “all they know is that…the house is definitely not going to be back to a liveable standard any time soon.”

  
There was silence.

  
“We lost everything,” Stiles said, before breaking down into loud sobs.


	2. Charity Case

**CHAPTER TWO**

<strike>charity case</strike>

When Stiles woke up the next morning, Scott had already left the bed. He had left a note on the bedside table, reading “don’t panic bro, just downstairs – breakfast whenever you’re ready.”

  
Stiles put the piece of paper back on the bedside table and tried not to think about what had happened earlier that morning.

But it was hard. It was hard to ignore the fact that he knew that he wouldn’t be heading home today, to his room and his game and his laptop and his books and all the memories that simply made it home.

And it was all his fault.

* * *

Stiles eventually dragged himself out of his best friends bed and made his way downstairs. Melissa had gone to work and his dad was also nowhere to be seen – but there was a note on the fridge from him saying that he would be back shortly. 

“He left half an hour ago,” Scott said, answering his unasked question from lounge room. He was holding two controllers in his hand, giving Stiles a small smile that told him he wasn’t going to ask – he was going to let Stiles make the first move.

Stiles headed over and sat on the couch, but didn’t hold his hand out for the controller. Scott got the message and without saying anything, changed the game mode back to single player. It was Mario Kart, one of Stiles’ favourite games because he could kick anyone’s ass in it. He appreciated the effort, but Stiles couldn’t focus.

“Mom left some Adderall on the counter for you. She’s always kept a spare packet in the medicine cabinet just in case you forget yours.”

  
Stiles gave him a small smile – he wished he had simply forgotten his medication. 

  
“And she knows how many tablets are in there, so make sure you take one before she gets home,” Scott said offhandedly, starting up a game.

It was a level that Stiles wasn’t too fussed about – his favourite was Rainbow Road, simply because everyone hated it, and everyone double hated it when Stiles kicked their ass in a race on the road – and Stiles rarely ever fell off the track.

  
Scott complained as he fell off the track – it was a Wario level, a track that looked like a mine, “how the hell do you manage to stay on the track man? I just can’t do it,” he shook his head, and groaned when he realised he had gone from third place to twelfth.

  
Any other time, Stiles would have been mocking Scott’s lack of Mario Kart skills – but he found himself getting up from the couch and heading into the kitchen to take the Adderall, so that he wouldn’t disappoint Melissa. He never had an issue with staying at the McCall’s – it was like a second home to him – but right now, he wanted nothing more than to be in his own home. It was the Christmas holidays, it was snowing and he wanted to be in bed, watching Netflix on his laptop. But his room, his bed, his laptop – they were all gone.

  
“Stiles, are you okay in there?”

  
Stiles shook himself out of his thoughts and turned to find Scott walking into the kitchen, looking concerned. There was a part of Stiles that was grateful for Scott paying enough attention to him to know he was acting abnormal, but there was another part of Stiles that just wanted Scott – just wanted everyone – to leave him alone. He didn’t know which part was greater. 

  
Stiles heard the front door unlock, and he poked his head out to see his dad walking into the house, carrying two garbage bags.

  
“Hey kiddo,” he said with a small smile, “hey Scott.”

  
“Hey Sheriff,” Scott said, smiling at the older man. He had always called Stiles’ dad ‘Sheriff.’ At first, it had been a respect thing that his mom had urged him to do – when Stiles and Scott had only just become friends and Melissa hadn’t known the two Stilinski men that well, but knew of them. Now, however, Stiles wasn’t completely convinced that Scott didn’t think that the Sheriff of Beacon Hills’ name on his birth certificate was in fact just Sheriff Stilinski. 

  
“Where did you get a key to the house?” 

  
Noah cocked up a brow, “your mom let me borrow it and said that while we’re here, if I need to leave the house, just feel free to let myself back in.”

  
Scott frowned, “he said there wasn’t any spare keys left.”

  
Stiles gave a small smile, “I think she was just making sure you didn’t lose any more buddy,” he said in a small but teasing tone, “keys are expensive to replace.”

  
Scott rolled his eyes, “I could have paid for it.”

  
“What’s in the bags?” Stiles interrupted, looking at the two black garbage bags like he was unsure about them.

  
His dad lifted them up, so Stiles could see them better. He had a sheepish look on his face, like he was a tad ashamed. 

  
“They’re full of clothes. I went to the charity center and told them what happened to us. They were more than happy to help.”  
He passed one of the bags to Stiles, who noted that the bag was actually quite heavy. 

  
“They not quite your size, but it was the closest I could get.”

  
Stiles nodded. But he felt a little ashamed. He had actually donated to that same center many times – old clothes that didn’t fit him anymore, old books he wasn’t interested anymore, even old games that he loved but didn’t think he’d play again. He felt like he was stealing from the charity, even though he knew all he had was the clothes on his back. He didn’t even have his phone.

  
He took the clothing up to Scott’s room, thanking his dad before he made his way up the steps, and when he got to Scott’s room, started emptying the bag and going through the clothes. It was mostly full of old looking shirts with band logos, what looked like an old Beacon Hills High Basketball shirt, and some used and abused looking jackets. As he dug deeper he found some other items. A few pairs of nice jeans, and old ratty pair that looked like it would be the only pair that properly fit Stiles without a belt, and a couple of Henley’s. They were a bit too big for him, but he supposed they would be good for pyjama shirts. He grabbed a band shirt that had a faded a peeling logo for a band called The Struts. He grabbed a pair of jeans and headed for the bathroom. 

* * *

“Noah you don’t have to do that, you can stay here – we have the room.”

  
Stiles had walked down the stairs to find Melissa home, her arms crossed across her chest in an attempt to seem like she wouldn’t take no for an answer. But, his dad seemed to either not notice this attempt, or politely ignored it.

“I know that you have the room, but you and Scott have a life – we don’t want to intrude-.”

“You’re family,” Scott said, looking towards Stiles as he entered the room. He turned back to Stiles’ dad with a determined expression, “you’re not intruding on anything.”

Noah smiled at him, but shook his head, “I’ve already signed up – we might get a nice old man or something in need of some company and willing to share his house with us-.”

Stiles butt in at that moment, “what’s going on? What are we talking about?” He asked, sounding a little more panicky than he would have liked. 

Noah turned around, seemingly not having noticed Scott look at him before. He sighed before saying, “you can’t change my mind.”

Stiles wasn’t sure whether his dad was saying it to him, Melissa or Scott. But he knew that tone, and knew that whatever decision the sheriff had made was indeed, final.

Stiles sat down at the table, taking a turn at looking at each of them. But none of them would quite meet his eye. He sighed – whatever was going on would apparently upset him.

“Anyone wanna give me the bad news? I’m not that fragile, you know?”

Scott looked down in his lap.

Melissa bit her lip. 

His dad cleared his throat.

“The charity center has a list of people who are willing to house people in dire need of a home. I put us down on the list earlier this morning.”

Stiles nodded slowly, “but you can go back and cross off our name on the list right? Explain that we have family friends willing to take us in?”

Nobody said anything, just refused to look at one another.

“Oh come on!” Stiles shouted, standing up, feeling anger radiate through his body, “this is bullshit! Just tell me what the fuck is going on!”

Any other time his dad or even Melissa would have told him off for language, but they realised now wasn’t really the time to be remembering manners and how much Stiles was allowed to swear in accordance to his age.

“I can’t because someone has already agreed to house us. The people who offer their homes are typically in a better situation where they can handle having whole families join them in their home. Isaac will be back in a few weeks and so this house is going to get a little bit crowded,” his dad looked at Melissa, who shook her head and looked down at her nurse shoes. 

Obviously Melissa had no objections to Stiles and Noah staying with them. This was his dads’ doing.

“So we’re just going to awkwardly burden complete strangers with our existence then?” Stiles snapped, “that’s awful. That’s bullshit. I’m not doing it.”

Stiles stormed up the stairs before anything else could be said or done. He heard something in the kitchen smash and Melissa startle, but he didn’t turn back. He ended up in Scott’s room, slamming the door behind him, and burying himself under the covers in hopes to avoid anyone if they decided to follow him. 

* * *

Stiles was sitting up the top of the stairs. He’d avoided dinner that night and had planned on sneaking a little bit out of the fridge. But, even though Scott was asleep, the boy having come up to the room eventually and try and get Stiles to talk to him before going to sleep, his dad and Melissa were still sitting at the kitchen table, talking.

“I know you wanted us to stay. I appreciate the offer Melissa, I really do, it’s just-.”

“I get it,” Melissa said. Someone’s mug was put down on the table. Stiles felt a little guilty for eavesdropping on the conversation, but he knew they wouldn’t talk openly with him around, “I just wish I could help more, even though I know that I can’t. There’s really no room for you both to get your life back together. Especially once Isaac comes back.”

“Also, I’m sure Scott will get sick of Stiles kicking him in his sleep eventually.”

Melissa laughed, “he’s still a kicker? The last time I had Stiles sleep in my bed was when he had that really bad nightmare when he was seven.” 

“Oh he never shut up about that night,” his dad chuckled, “he kept saying that you were his best friend now, instead of Scott, which meant that he was allowed to do adult things.”

“Like what?”

“He kept saying he wanted to drive me to work.”

“Wow, even as a kid he was way more interested in helping you than doing anything for his personal gain,” Melissa chided. Stiles wished he could see their faces right now. Wished that this conversation was happening with him making his own quips about himself as a child. That he wasn’t eavesdropping after throwing a tantrum. That his home hadn’t burned down.

“I raised a good kid,” his dad said, his tone an agreeing one. But he paused, “he’s been through hell. I don’t know how to fix him.”

Stiles froze. What did he mean he didn’t know how to fix him? 

“Is he still sleepwalking?”

Stiles cocked up a brow.

“Yes. I thought it would stop after all the Nogitsune business. But, I still find him in places where I shouldn’t. Sitting in the lounge room in the dark, standing in front of the open fridge – the other week I found him standing in the middle of the street.”

Stiles had assumed he’d stopped, because his dad hadn’t said anything was amiss. 

“I started sleeping with the door open just in case, so I can hear him move in the night. One night I woke up to him standing at the foot of my bed, looking in my direction – but his eyes were closed. Yet his face followed me no matter where I moved. It was…” he didn’t finish.

He heard one of the chairs move slightly, “I feel as if this isn’t something that can be fixed with a doctors visit – or even by visiting a therapist.”

“I’m worried the Nogitsune has still got him.”

* * *

Stiles hadn’t been able to sleep that night. He had tossed and turned, to the point where Scott been woken several times. He knew if it were any other time, Scott would have told him to knock it off – tell him to go sleep on the couch even. But he assumed Scott thought he was tossing and turning about the house, the fire. While that was definitely something to toss and turn about, it was about what his dad had said when he had been talking to Melissa. 

He didn’t remember any of what he had described – he had thought for sure that he had been sleeping soundly, not leaving the bed whatsoever. He would have thought his dad would have said something to him, as his dad knew how scared he had been during the Nogitsune phase. 

When he went for a shower that morning, he looked at his naked body in the mirror. He looked a little thinner than usual and he had dark circles under his eyes. The last two nights had taken their toll on him with his issues sleeping, he had been thinking too much and whenever his brain shut up just enough for him to sleep, he had nightmares that scared and confused him. The worst part was that when he was awake, he couldn’t remember what they were about. 

He shook his head at his appearance, it hurt to look at, so, looking away from the mirror he hopped into the shower, in the hope that he would come out feeling clean and refreshed and a little more ready to take on the day. As today was the day they would be going to the house of the person who had volunteered to put up with them until they managed to get back on their feet. 

He turned the cold water tap on until it could be turned no more.

* * *

His hair was wet and cold when he headed downstairs, carrying an old school bag of Scott’s with him. The old school bag was full of the clothes that Stiles had decided to keep, which was mostly t-shirts and a few pairs of jeans. He had managed to borrow an old belt from Scott as well. He hated it but it would have to do.

When he headed into the lounge room, where everyone was waiting for Stiles, everyone looked at him. 

“I’m not going to bite,” Stiles said. He felt grumpy, he felt tired. He felt clean at least, but the shower hadn’t done much to make him feel more alive than he currently did.

“We’re just waiting for a phone call,” Noah said, looking nervous.

“Who from?”

Melissa and Scott looked up at the sheriff curiously as well. Stiles was glad he wasn’t the only one being kept in the dark. 

“From the person who has kindly decided to take us in,” Noah said, putting emphasis on the word ‘kindly.’ It almost sounded a little sarcastic, but Stiles was sure he was just imagining it. 

“Okay,” Stiles said, sitting down in one of the comfy armchairs that had been around since Stiles had first started coming over to the McCall house, “can I stay here tonight while you sort things out with the generous person who doesn’t know what they’re getting into?”

Noah sighed.

“Stiles,” Melissa said, turning to look at him. She was using her stern yet oddly maternal nurse tone, that Stiles had been on the receiving end of many, many times, “I think it would be best for you to go with your dad. There is a lot you need to sort out, and you need to get comfortable there. Who knows how long you’re going to be living there for – it could be days, it could be weeks or months.”

“Comforting,” Stiles responded drily. 

“That’s enough-,” Noah’s cell personal cell phone, that had been in his hand for the conversation, started to ring. He looked down at it for a moment, before answering it.

“Hi, is everything ready?” He asked immediately. He didn’t say anything while the person on the other end spoke. He could see Scott listening in on the conversation, and suddenly his eyes widened. He looked at Stiles, but didn’t say anything, which caused Stiles to feel nervous.

“Listen, I just want to thank you again for this. I didn’t really know where else to turn,” he paused as the other person spoke. He nodded, realised that the person on the other end wouldn’t actually see him nodded, and said something instead. Before hanging up, he said another thank you and that he’d be there in half an hour. When he hung up, Stiles didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do. So he just sat there, looking at his hands that were sitting in his lap.

It’s not that he was upset that he was leaving Scott and his mom’s place. He was anxious about not knowing what was going on, and the fact that his dad hadn’t bothered to tell him about where they were staying was really putting him on edge. But then, he wondered just how much his dad actually knew about he arrangement.

“You packed?” 

Stiles nodded, “have my TV and everything.”

Noah sighed, but Scott looked at Stiles hopefully. Because Stiles joking meant he was okay, right? Stiles didn’t even know the answer to that.

“Let’s get going then,” he looked at Melissa and Scott and gave them a warm smile, “thank you both, so much, for everything you did while we were here,” Noah grabbed the spare keys out of his pocket but Melissa shook her head.

“Keep them, just in case something goes wrong and neither of us are at home.”  
He nodded and put the keys back in his pocket.

They all walked outside and Stiles headed to his car, with Scott following him.

“You going to be okay?” Scott asked, “you know if you’re not too comfortable, you can always come hang-.”

Stiles nodded and cut him off, “I know, but I gotta give this a chance,” he said, sounding not too convinced, “this situation isn’t ideal, but we’ve been through hell and my dad has been trying his hardest to take care of us. It wouldn’t be fair of me to run off just because I’m uncomfortable. I’ll work it out,” he didn’t know whether he was trying to convince Scott, or himself. 

Stiles looked towards where his dad was standing near the drivers door of his car. Melissa was standing there and they were talking about something. He looked at Scott, who as well was looking at the pair, with concern.

“What are they talking about?” Stiles asked, flowing with curiosity, “they finally arranging a time for their first date?”

Scott snorted, “nah, just mom making sure that if something happens you two know to come back,” Scott said. But there was something off about his tone. Stiles felt a little wounded, because he felt as if Scott was lying to him. But he didn’t want to call him out on it. The last thing he needed was to lose trust in his best friend, his brother. 

He said another bye to Scott, and said that maybe he’d pop over next weekend once everything had settled to come play FIFA. Scott said it sounded like a great idea, but his eyes were filled with guilt.

As Stiles started his old Jeep, he couldn’t help but mutter to himself, “what the fuck is going on?”

* * *

He followed his dad’s car the entire way, not even bothering to ask for an address. Ten minutes into the drive and Stiles decided to turn up the radio in the Jeep. The reception was pretty bad where they were driving, which was near a bunch of factories at the moment, and he only got a few crappy talk back channels. He kept the radio turned up anyway. He wished he’d asked Scott to come with and offer to drive him back home later, but he hadn’t thought of it at the time, and the volunteer might get cold feet if they saw three people instead of two people rock up to their house.

Once he got past the industrial lot with all the factories, he finally got some decent music stations. He stuck to one and caught the end of one of his favourite All Time Low songs. The next song announced was a song called ‘Body Talks’ by a band called The Struts. Stiles briefly looked down at his shirt with a look of amusement. Okay, maybe the person who owned this shirt before him had some decent music taste, because honestly – the song wasn’t bad.

When the song finished, he looked around and noticed they’d entered a fancier area of Beacon Hills. He’d never been here, not even for trick or treating – for trick or treating during Halloween, Scott and Stiles often used to hit up the wealthier areas, as their candy was better. But they’d entered Lydia’s area. This area had been built recently, and judging by some of the properties, was still having work put into it. 

His dad’s car in front of him indicated a left hand turn. Stiles jumped and quickly did the same, forgetting to indicate in the process. He was sure his dad would have a go at him for that later.   
They headed down a street with large houses and immaculate lawns. As he drove down the street, he kept trying to predict which house they would turn into. But he was only able to guess once they got to the very end of the street, which was a cul-de-sac. There were only three, big houses. One was a dark grey, one was white, and one was still in the works.

His dad turned into the driveway for the big grey one, as Stiles did the same, he couldn’t help but stare up at the house – his mouth agape. It was huge, and modern, and nothing Stiles could ever be able to afford. It was nice to know that some people who owned houses like these were willing to sacrifice their homes for people less fortunate.

But Stiles felt like he wasn’t going to be able to get comfortable in the place, for fear of leaving even the slightest mark that he existed in the house.   
He almost bumped into the rear end of his dads car, but managed to quickly brake. But it didn’t go unnoticed. His dad was already out of the car, and his face had gone red. Now he was shaking his head in a slightly amused and disappointed way.

Stiles parked and got out of the car and once again looked up at the house in front of him. Lots of windows, lots of grey concrete, lots of modern.

The front door opened, his dad turned and started moving towards the front door, Stiles followed in order to see past his dad, to see what a person who owned a home like this would even look like.   
He got the answer to his question in the form of a tall, muscled young man, with stubble and an obvious love for leather jackets and Henleys. 

“No way,” Stiles gasped out, looking the old man up and down as if it was all just a hallucination, “we are so not staying with him.”


	3. Four Rules

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m super grateful to everyone who has bookmarked, commented and kudos’d this fic so far. Thank you so much for the warm welcome back into the fanfiction community!

**CHAPTER THREE**

<strike>four rules</strike>

Derek Hale stood at the top of a small set of white marble stairs, looking at Stiles with something akin to boredom. He looked at the sheriff, who to his credit, looked just as displeased by the situation.

“So. You volunteered with a fake name,” Noah said, discomfort apparent in his voice.

“I thought it would be the only way you would actually come here,” Derek shrugged, putting his hands in the pockets of his expensive looking jeans, “why don’t you both come inside. I’ll answer any questions either of you have.”

Before either of them could say anything, Derek turned back around and walked through the open doorway. Both of the black doors were open – beyond them, Stiles could see a hall and several different entrances. The one at the end looked like it led to the kitchen.

His dad was the first to follow, looking stiff and awkward as he headed into the house. Stiles wondered if he too was looking at the house with the immense fear of exisiting in it. He followed Derek into the kitchen, and Stiles had no other option left but to do the same. However, he wanted nothing more than to jump back into his Jeep and go back to Scott’s house. Hell, he’d live in the remains of his destroyed family home before comfortably having Derek as a volunteer roommate.

The kitchen was nice and spacious, and surprisingly had an array of different cooking utensils. Some of which, Stiles didn’t recognise at all. He couldn’t imagine Derek being domestic, cooking in a kitchen and sleeping in an expensive bed and doing human things like watching TV and reading books that weren’t related to things that were supernatural. Stiles had honestly assumed that Derek just lived in a cave somewhere until he had seen his old loft. He had known Derek had left it – but he didn’t know he had swapped the loft for this.

“I’ll let you both ask your questions and then I’ll ask mine,” Derek said, looking at the two of them. His dad was standing at the counter with a glass of water in front of him, while Stiles was standing awkwardly and looking around. He couldn’t help it – this was just crazy!

“What the actual fuck do you do for a living?” Stiles asked loudly. 

“Language!”

Stiles didn’t apologise. 

Derek shrugged, “not really important, is it Stiles?”

Stiles wanted to argue that yes, yes it was important, because if he was some illegal human sex trafficker, or the leader of a drug cartel, he had every right to know if someone was going to attempt to kill his dad, or himself in their sleep for affiliating with him.  
But he decided to let it go. 

“Why have you decided to take us in?” His dad asked instead, looking at Derek suspiciously.

Derek looked like he wanted to be offended by the question, but also knew that the question was perfectly valid to ask, considering his track record of not really giving a shit about people until he absolutely had to, and even though his behaviour had gotten better towards Stiles since they had first met; it was still out of character for Derek to let Stiles and his dad stay in his home.

“I wanted to help. I heard what happened, and I know that being homeless is an awful feeling. I thought if anyone was equipped enough to let you stay for however long you both needed – it was me,” Derek stated simply, looking between the two men standing there, looking sceptical, “I’m not up to something – that’s something Peter would pull. Not me.” 

“How long are we allowed to stay here,” Stiles cut in before anyone could say anything else. 

Derek shrugged, “however long you too need. I don’t exactly get visitors or have a stray son who comes and goes every so often,” he said, referencing Isaac and his living situation with Scott and Melissa. Though, admittedly the reason for Isaac running away was a bit sadder than usual. 

Stiles tried not to think about it, as it was something he wasn’t quite over yet either.

“There’s just a few rules I’d probably like to put down,” Derek opened up a notebook that Stiles didn’t realise had been in front of him the entire time, and turned to a page filled with a bunch of handwriting. Both Noah and Stiles realised in that moment, much to their amusement, that Derek had written down the rules in preparation for their stay.

He turned the notebook around so that Noah could read it. His eyes scanned the page quickly, and when he was done he looked up at Derek once more and nodded, “I think I can handle that.”

Stiles tried reading it over his shoulder, “what’s that word say?”

Derek rolled his eyes, “my handwriting isn’t that hard to read.”  
Stiles shrugged.

“Alright,” Derek cleared his throat and read out the rules;

**1\. Feel free to buy your own food and feel free to help yourselves to mine. Just tell me what you’ve eaten so I know to replace it.**   
**2\. Don’t invite people over without letting me know – I’m not a fan of surprise guests. **   
**3\. Stiles – no parties. I know you won’t clean up well enough and I don’t trust you not to break something. **   
**4\. PLEASE DO NOT GO INTO THE ROOM UPSTAIRS, AT THE END OF THE LEFT HALLWAY.**

“Only four rules?” Stiles asked, mocking surprise, “I thought ‘don’t breathe in my direction,’ would at least be in there.”

At the same time as his dad said, “Stiles cut it out,” Derek said, “well, there’s still room on the page.”

Noah looked like he didn’t know what to do.

“Well, what now?” Stiles asked, trying his hardest to sound polite. But there was a very strong part of him that didn’t entirely trust Derek’s attention. He would never betray Stiles when it came to pack related things. But this was unrelated – he wouldn’t be surprised if Stiles and his dad ended up being thrown out after a week. 

“I’ll show you both where you’re staying.”

* * *

It was too hours later and Stiles had decided to hide out in the room he had been given for the time being. His dad and Derek were downstairs, either somehow managing to socialise with one another – which Stiles couldn’t understand how – or awkwardly avoiding each other in different rooms. He had no idea which one was most likely. The room around Stiles was white and modern, bigger than what his bedroom had been, and had a walk in robe- which was a lot considering it was a guest room that, according to Derek, nobody had stayed in before.

“The entire house is new,” Derek had said to his dad, who had commented on the amount of empty rooms, “they had the options of doing certain floor plans for the neighbourhood, and I picked this one. It seemed the least luxurious.”

Stiles had snorted and made a comment about picking the least luxurious option yet moving to one of the richest areas in the town. The comment had been ignored. 

* * *

The bed in the room was much more comfy that the one he had been sleeping on – with its worn out springs and fading pattern.   
There was an iMac in the corner on a glass desk that looked brand new – which was confirmed to Stiles when he found the box in the walk in robe, sitting on one of the shelves. He’d been told he was allowed to use it, and when Derek had walked away, his dad had mouthed to him something about ‘if you put viruses on it, I swear to God.’

He had to admit, it had crossed his mind to do it just to be a dick. But he knew deep down he couldn’t. So far, Derek had done nothing more than made a few sarcastic comments about Stiles – much less harsh than some of the ones that he had made about Derek. To be honest, he felt like he had been awful to him. But he didn’t know how to take it back now. 

He didn’t know why he was being such a douche. 

There was a knock on the bedroom door and Stiles told the person to come in. To his surprise, and immediately displeasure, it was Derek. 

“Dinner’s ready. I ordered some food. Your dad told me what you’d like, so if you don’t like it, blame him.”

That was all Derek said before closing the door again. 

Stiles got off the edge of the bed, where he had been sitting when Derek had opened the door. He was tempted to grab his food and run back up stairs, but it wasn’t fair to his dad to leave him alone for much longer with the sourwolf. So he left the room and went downstairs to where he knew the dining room was. His dad was already sitting down and putting food on his plate, and he could hear Derek grabbing what he assumed were glasses from the kitchen. 

Stiles sat down next to his dad and grabbed a plate from the pile. Chinese food had been ordered from one of Stiles’ favourite take-aways. He grabbed at some spring rolls and some dumplings and put them on his plate. 

Derek came back with regular drinking glasses and a bottle of grape soda. 

He looked at his dad, cocking up a brow. His dad must have mentioned that the grape soda brand from the Chinese restaurant was one of his favourites.

They all ate in silence, awkward, but not rude. However, Stiles did enjoy the food. It was probably the best thing that happened to him in the last two days. 

Derek was the first to finish, and informed the two of them that if there were leftovers just feel free to put them wherever in the fridge, and that he was going to be in his room upstairs. Noah thanked him for dinner, and Stiles managed a thumbs up gesture. His mouth had been full, but that hadn’t stopped him from talking with his mouth full before.

His dad turned to him once Derek headed upstairs. 

“You could be a little bit nicer Stiles, he’s helping us out,” he said, sounding disappointed. 

He hated that his behaviour was disappointing his dad, he didn’t want to upset him, especially with everything that had happened.   
“I know,” Stiles said, feeling sheepish and regretful, “I’m just having a hard time with all of this. I’ll try and be nicer, I’ll apologise tomorrow.”

Noah looked at him for a moment with his head slightly angled to the left. He was thinking, and thinking hard. But, he sighed and nodded, realising that was probably the best he was going to get from his stubborn son.

“I have work tomorrow,” Noah said, causing Stiles to stop in the middle of eating his third dumpling.

Stiles slowly put the dumpling down back on his plate, “uh…to tell everyone else that you’re taking a break for a few weeks?” 

Noah shook his head, “no, I have to go to work. We need the money Stiles – the more I earn, the sooner we can get our own place again.” 

Stiles sighed, looked around and gave his dad a soft smile, “well, you know, I’m not moving out unless we get our hands on a sweet place like this.”

Noah rolled his eyes and ruffled his sons hand, before picking up his own plate and declaring he was going to take a shower.

Stiles sat the the dining table alone, pushing his food around with his chopsticks, wondering how on earth he was going to survive this place.

* * *

He couldn’t sleep.

He lay on his back on the mattress that was so comfortable, if he had been in his own house he would have passed out instantly. But he wasn’t in his own house, and that was driving him insane. He would have been on his phone if he had it, telling Scott all about how the volunteer had been Derek Hale of all people, and how he didn’t know whether or not he could survive here, without killing Derek or without killing himself. Or, you know, the more believable option – without Derek Hale killing him.

He was still determined to avoid using the iMac on the desk – even though the shiny newness of the latest model called out to him, enticingly. But, it wasn’t his. It belonged to Derek, and he didn’t want to give Derek the satisfaction of using it.  
He wondered if the news had reported about what had happened to their house. He wondered if there was a false explanation posted for the sake of readers, or whether the Beacon Hills Fire Service had openly admitted that they couldn’t figure out the cause for the fire, but that they were still working on it. 

He wondered if anyone had attempted to text or call him, asking if he was okay. Why he hadn’t been on any of his social media profiles in the last two days. Surely someone would have noticed by now – right?

Stiles wasn’t convinced – besides, people were still pretty focused on Allison’s death, and honestly, he didn’t want to take away from that. 

He didn’t deserve to take away from that. 

He didn’t know how Scott was coping so well – he didn’t even know how Scott managed to look at him with anything other than red hot hate flowing through his veins. 

He had thought for sure that Scott and Allison would be a together forever type of deal; that they would one day try and put all this supernatural stuff behind them, get married, pop out a litter, and live the rest of their lives happily ever after, while Stiles cheered from the sidelines. That had been the plan. But, they’d broken up and that had been a shock, and then Allison had died…and it had been his fault.

Stiles fell asleep, not even fully realising that he had started sobbing.

* * *

When he woke up, his eyes felt sore and his head felt foggy. He had a pretty bad headache and his mouth was dry. Unlike his dad, he didn’t have his own bathroom, so he’d have to use one of the other bathrooms in the house to freshen up. So he got out of bed, looking around the room, a wave of sickness sweeping over him. The unfamiliarity that he felt as he looked around the room that was meant for him made him feel home sick. But the sickness he was feeling now was also something else – he was riddled with anxiety and just wanted to stay in his bed all day, especially because he knew his dad would be at work by now. 

He took a deep breath, willing himself to not throw up, and opened the bedroom door – it didn’t squeak like his bedroom door had back in his home. The squeaking had annoyed him, and it had made it hard for him to sneak out of his room for whatever reason he felt the need to sneak out. It’s the reason why so often he had preferred sneaking out through the window.

He looked at the window in the room, and he felt himself being tempted. He could sneak out, jump into his Jeep, and completely avoid any awkwardness with Derek that way. He could go to Scott’s place, and he’d actually join in playing Mario Kart this time. He’d be able to tell Scott all about what had happened. He was sure Scott, with his immense loyalty, would be just as confused and slightly angry as he was.

But, despite so desperately wanted to do so, he walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

The hallway was bare – completely empty. The only thing stopping the whiteness of it all was the grey doors that led to different rooms. He knew that one a little way up the hall was his dads’ room, and at the moment his door was ajar. That didn’t mean he was home of course – it was just a bad habit that his dad had. 

He realised that he had no idea where Derek’s room was – which means he didn’t know how to avoid it. 

He quickly walked down the stairs, hoping that one of the rooms he was walking past wasn’t one of them. He looked down the other hallway briefly, wondering if his bedroom was the room they weren’t allowed to enter. How dramatic of Derek Hale to not just explicitly say ‘stay out of my room,’ rather than making a rule that just piqued Stiles’ curiosity. 

The stairs were solid marble, just like the ones outside had been, and Stiles had to admit he didn’t know whether or not he was a fan. He had rather liked the carpeted stairs with the hollow wood sound that had been in his house – they hadn’t been fashionable but the sound had been cool. 

Stiles hadn’t even reached the bottom of the stairs when he heard Derek call out, “how do you take your coffee?”

Stiles froze on the step he was on, his eyes wide and slightly fearful. How could he decline the coffee without being rude? How could he say ‘no thanks, I’m worried you’ll poison it,’ without it being upsetting?

“Uh…cream, two sugars, and a lack of poison,” Stiles said, going down the rest of the stairs and walking down the hall towards the kitchen. 

This modern design thing might not be his type of deco – it just felt way too fancy for him – but he had to admit, he liked the kitchen. It was clean looking, and the light from the big windows made everything bright, despite the dark grey kitchen cupboards – but it helped that the counter tops were white. Also marble looking. 

“Great,” he heard Derek respond. He had been standing behind the open cupboard of the pantry. He came out holding two containers, and he placed them on the counter. He looked at Stiles with a sarcastic glint to his eye, “because we just ran out of poison.”

Stiles tentatively sat at the island, on one of the stools. He was tempted to spin around on it, but thought for sure that would make Derek rip the hair out of his head, “that’s fine. Your poison wouldn’t have been good enough anyway,” Stiles was shocked to find that he still had some semblance of a sense of humour left, “I like my poison freshly squeezed.”

“Fancy,” Derek commented, spooning sugar into a dark blue mug that Stiles assumed was for him. 

Stiles shrugged, jumping slightly when the stool turned and banged into the side of the island – though Derek didn’t make any move to show annoyance, “if you think my drink preferences are fancy, you should see your house.”

Derek rolled his eyes, and placed a steaming mug of sugared coffee in front of Stiles, which Stiles was grateful for. He held the mug in both of his hands and took a sip. It was a nicer coffee than the stuff he would have downed multiple mugs of back at home, until it had to be wrestled away from him; which sucked during exam time.

“Yeah…my house is a lot,” Derek muttered. If Stiles didn’t know any better, he would have said that Derek was feeling insecure. But he didn’t say anything about it, and continued to drink from his mug. 

“Your dad told me this morning he would try and get out of work as soon as possible,” Derek said, putting his own now empty mug in the sink, giving it a little rinse, “he said something about taking out an advance payment from work.”

Stiles furrowed his brow, “do we have to pay to live here?”

Derek shook his head, “no – the whole point of the program is to support people. I’m financially stable enough that I can afford whatever changes are made to my utilities and well – I own the house.”

Stiles didn’t say anything.

“When you get the chance, you can move your dinosaur into the garage,” Derek said, walking towards the dining room table and sitting down. There was a book in front of his seat that looked like the journal that he had seen yesterday – with all the house rules written down in it.

“Oi, don’t insult my baby,” Stiles snapped, half humour, half defensively, “Roscoe is fancier than your house could ever be, buddy.”

“You named your car?” Derek said, looking at him with an amused expression.

“You didn’t name yours?” Stiles bit back.

Derek shrugged and turned back to the journal, a pen in hand.

Stiles finished with his coffee and rinsed his mug in the sink as well, leaving it in there before turning back around and resting back against the bench.

“So…” Stiles trailed off, thinking of something to say. Derek continued writing in the journal, occasionally looking at his phone.

Stiles thought of something.

“So, the only room in the house I’m not allowed to go into is the one at the end of the left hallway…right?” 

“Right.”

“Aight, cool,” Stiles said, bouncing off the counter and heading out of the kitchen.

Derek looked up at Stiles, who walked past him and was heading into the hallway that was towards the front door, “what are you doing?” He asked, sounding slightly wary.

“Exploring,” Stiles said with a shrug, “cya.”

Stiles hurriedly rushed down the hall, only just catching Derek’s comment of ‘oh God.’


	4. Blink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone for their enthusiasm so far! I’m sorry if this chapter seems a bit short. I’m currently working on the next chapter, which will be longer!

**CHAPTER FOUR**

<strike>blink</strike>

Despite telling Derek that he had gone off to explore, he found himself stuck in the library upstairs. It had multiple shelves of books, all different genres, ranging from supernatural fiction and non-fiction, to history, to sci-fi – dude had it all. He also found that the couches were super comfy in here, and didn’t look like the stiff barely used ones he had discovered in the lounge room, close to the front door. He’d walked past the lounge room the first day he had entered the house – and he regretted it as soon as he walked in there for the first time. Admittedly, while the couches in the room were a tad uncomfortable, he couldn’t get over the size of the TV and the expensive looking quality of the surround sound system. 

If he had his consoles, he would have loved to see the picture and hear the sound while playing some of his games. 

The thought had made Stiles sad, so he had decided to head back upstairs and look around some more in the upstairs room.

One of the doors had been locked, and it hadn’t been the one in the end of the left hallway, so Stiles assumed that possibly it was Derek’s bedroom. He was sure it would feature a boring little dog bed and some chew toys in there anyway – maybe some human chew bones – who knew. He had looked around and found two more upstairs bathrooms, three more empty bedrooms, and then he had found the library. 

There wasn’t just books in there either. There was a TV – smaller than the one in the lounge room but bigger than the one Stiles had had in his room back home. There were some speakers on the wall, there was a desk, and there were stacks – oddly untidy considering the rest of the organisation around the room – of CDs. Stiles didn’t get too close, for fear of knocking them over and making a mess – causing the big ol’ sourwolf downstairs to run up and rip his throat out, but he had caught a glimpse at some of the titles – Nirvana, The Black Keys, Two Door Cinema Club, The Neighbourhood – a very different and interesting variety.

Stiles frowned, surely this isn’t the stuff Derek listened to. It seemed too…human. 

He heard the front door downstairs open, and voices speaking to each other. He rushed out of the room, making sure to close the door behind him, and headed down the stairs. 

His dad was standing in the kitchen, making himself a coffee, looking a little like the day had been a rough one. If they had been back in their house – the man probably wouldn’t have headed for the coffee and went straight for the whiskey.

“How was work?” Stiles asked, grateful that he could to someone now, without awkwardness. 

“Awful,” his old man muttered, just as his phone vibrated and lit up with a message. Stiles stifled the urge to look at the screen and try and read it – a habit of his that his dad hated, “just Melissa,” he cleared his throat, “asking how you’re coping with everything.”

Stiles wanted to be perfectly honest – he fucking hated this entire situation and would have much preferred living with the McCall’s. He felt awkward as hell here and hated the fact that Derek was seemingly being nice to him – which made him feel more uneasy than if the guy had just been his regular dickish self. 

“Fine,” Stiles muttered, “everything is fine,” he looked at the floor, “why was work awful?”

The sheriff hadn’t noticed his sons’ obvious discomfort and proceeded to answer Stiles’ question, “everyone kept coming into my office, being apologetic about the fire. It was just awkward and awful. I really wish people would have minded their own business and done some work instead.”

Stiles wanted to ask about the advancement. He knew his dad would have had to put some serious paperwork in to request it from the higher ups. They could really use the money right now. Stiles wished he had his card and could get his savings out – he had just under a grand in there.

“What did you get up to today?” His dad suddenly looked up at him expectantly. Stiles didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t really done anything, other than walk around the house, trying to get to know the place. 

He knew he should swallow his pride and use the iMac in the room he was staying in. Use it to try and get his life back together. But…

Nothing felt right, and he couldn’t shake that feeling off of him. 

He heard footsteps behind him and he turned around to find Derek walking into the kitchen. He passed Stiles and headed straight for the pantry.

“Did you get the advancement?” Derek asked, grabbing something off the top shelf and turning around to look at his dad. 

His dad nodded, “how much is weekly rent?”

Derek shrugged, “nothing,” he said, opening a packet of chips and putting some in his mouth, “you guys gotta get back on your feet – me demanding rent isn’t going to help.”

“We can’t live here for free,” Noah said, putting on his stern sheriff voice, as if he was trying to give Derek a speeding ticket.

Derek shrugged again, “you don’t have any of my bank details, and any cash you give me, I’ll return,” and then, before anything else could be said, he walked upstairs again – taking the steps two at a time.

Stiles snorted, “who knew someone could be so rude while talking about letting us live here for free.”

The sheriff shook his head, and responded to a message on his phone.

* * *

Stiles woke up. He was standing in the middle of the hallway, just outside his bedroom door. He didn’t remember going to bed, he didn’t remember going to sleep and he certainly didn’t remember waking up. He looked out the skylight that lined the hall and noticed that it was dark outside. He had no clue what time it was – he’d lost his watch in the fire as well – but it was dead quiet in the house. His dads’ bedroom door was ajar, and from inside he could hear light snores.

He stood there for a moment, unsure what to do with himself. This definitely confirmed that he had in fact been sleep walking lately, and that information was certainly unwelcome. He had hoped that maybe his dad had been dreaming and confused dreams with reality – but this…this was evidence that was hard to ignore.

He felt wide awake. 

He started walking down the hall, and was about to open the door when he noticed that there was a light pouring from underneath the door. 

Well, that ruined that plan. 

He turned back around, but before he could make his way down the hall again, the door opened behind him.

“Stiles.”

Stiles sighed and turned around. Derek stood there in pyjamas, holding a book in his hand. Any other time, Stiles may have taken a peek at the title. 

Before he got the chance to respond, everything stopped.

* * *

Stiles found himself in bed that morning. The sun pouring into the room through the window, he had forgotten to shut the curtains – the light was blinding.

He couldn’t remember getting back into bed. The last thing he remembered was Derek finding him in the hallway. Derek had looked a little concerned, yet oddly unsurprised about Stiles’ presence in the hallway last night.

He so desperately wanted to find out what had happened after. But he didn’t want Derek clueing on that he was losing time again. Last time that had happened…he didn’t want to think about it.

He left the room with a small pile of clothes in his arms, planning on going for a shower. When he was halfway towards the bathroom, he heard his dads’ voice – it sounded like he was on the phone, talking to somebody from work. He smiled – he must have gotten the day off of work. Awesome. 

He finished up his shower quickly and threw on a plain black shirt. The jeans he put on seemed to be a lot bigger than last time he had tried them on, and he was once again thankful he had borrowed a belt from Scott before leaving the McCall house. 

Dumping his dirty clothes into his room, he headed downstairs, his stomach rumbling with the need for food and maybe a coffee.

When he got on the bottom stair, his dad stopped talking on the phone to look at him. His old man gave him a small smile, and slowly continued on with his phone call. Stiles headed into the kitchen and took a look in the pantry.

“About time you woke up,” his dad said slowly, looking at Stiles oddly, “I was beginning to wonder if you’d died up there.”

Stiles rolled his eyes and looked at his dad exasperatedly, “it’s been a long time since I’ve slept in, okay pops? I-,” his voice cut off when he realised what his dad was wearing.

His work uniform.

But…

“Didn’t you get the day off?” Stiles asked slowly, his brow furrowed. 

His dad shook his head, “no, I got back home an hour ago.”

Stiles, confused and scared, reached for his dads phone. His dad made a surprised noise as Stiles turned the screen on and looked at the time.

It was 5.27PM.

* * *

An hour later, Derek had come home with ingredients for a dish that was apparently called ‘Poor Mans’ Potatoes.’ Stiles did the polite thing, and ate a small helping – he liked the flavour, there was no doubt in his mind that the food in front of him was delicious, and he found it surprising that Derek could cook – but he just wasn’t all that hungry. Not since he realised he had literally slept the entire day away.

It was dark outside now, and he could hear crickets outside. 

And then he blinked.

* * *

It was day time, and he was sitting in the library. He had a book in his lap, open onto a page that he was uncomfortable with. 

**HUMAN POSSESSION**

He slammed the book shut, and placed it on the coffee table in front of him, only just stopping himself from throwing it away from him and at the wall. 

“Nah,” Stiles said, scratching at his arms anxiously, “nah this isn’t happening this isn’t happening I’m fine I’m okay-.”

“Everything okay kiddo?”

He turned around to find his dad in the doorway, looking at him with worry. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, so he must’ve actually taken the day off this time. 

“Yeah,” Stiles lied, “fine.”


	5. It’s Cold Outside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry it’s been a few days. 
> 
> I’ve been reading through the fic and ALREADY I feel the urge to re-write it, because I feel it could be so much more detailed and interesting. I don’t know - you guys lemme know if you’d like a re-write at some point. Sometimes, it can be really hard writing during NaNo, because you’re just trying to work hard on getting that word count haha

**CHAPTER FIVE**

<strike>it’s cold outside</strike>

The next few weeks went by without much issue. Stiles wasn’t losing time as much as was finally starting to get comfortable with the house. It helped that Derek mostly kept to himself. The only time Stiles ever really saw him was during dinner, as they all ate together. Derek often spoke to his dad about work, keeping the details of his own career to himself. But Stiles definitely knew he had to be doing something for work. He had to be making somehow to be able to afford to keep them on their feet. 

Stiles had finally weakened and used the iMac in his room – but he hadn’t said anything to anyone about it. He mostly used it at night – he would check his socials, and try and find jobs. He’d been looking at a phone to get and had ordered it two days ago – it was supposed to arrive the next day.

Stiles was currently sitting at the computer, looking at a job for a barista that would offer training. He had applied for over 70 jobs, and hadn’t heard back from anyone. He had attached his email, we he checked every night, and his dads’ phone number. His dad said he hadn’t gotten any calls, and Stiles hadn’t gotten any emails. 

His dad had pretty much been working everyday for the last two and a half weeks, except for one Sunday where he had agreed to take the day off, only because Stiles had commented on how he was worried that his old man was going to have a heart attack from all the stress. 

Today, the sheriff had stayed home, but only because he had been put on his first night shift since the beginning of October. 

Stiles couldn’t sleep, partly because he was stressed about not finding enough jobs to apply to, and partly because his dad was working until 4am, and now he was home alone, at night, with Derek – and to top it all off, it was a full moon. 

Fucking fantastic.

* * *

Surprisingly, the night went by without incident – in fact, he didn’t hear any type of wolfishness throughout the night, and he would have considering he hadn’t slept at all. 

He’d stayed all night in front of the computer. He’d ordered himself a new bank card, and he’d ordered a pair of earphones to go with his new phone. Then, he’d spent the rest of the night trying to distract himself with some stupid games he’d found online. They’d been fun, for the first twenty minutes, but then his mind had tricked him into hearing things that weren’t there. 

It was two in the afternoon when there was a knock on the door and he raced down to open it. His new phone had arrived, and even though it was a cheap secondhand model that was older than his previous phone, he was just happy to have a phone again. 

He was sitting at the dining room table, trying to set it up, when Derek walked past. 

“New phone?”

Stiles shrugged, “new old phone, whichever – its’ mine though.”

“Huh, good,” Derek said. He was at the pantry again. Something that Stiles had learned about Derek is that he was a snacker, which was surprising considering his shape. But the man seemed to survive most of the day on small snacks, until dinner time.

Derek said something that Stiles didn’t catch, as he was busy trying to figure out how to get his SIM card to work.

“What?” Stiles said, a little ruder than he had intended. 

“I said, I’m glad you got a new phone. Now Scott can stop annoying me about how you are.”

Stiles frowned, “you and Scott text?”

Derek shrugged, as if the notion that he and Scott were texting buddies wasn’t that unusual.

“That’s weird,” Stiles said honestly, finally closing the SIM slot and trying to turn on the phone again. He had charged it until the battery symbol on the screen was green, but it still wasn’t working, “okay, I’m starting to think I got ripped off,” he dropped the phone on the table exhaustedly, only for the screen to fall out, “nice,” he hissed out, looking at the phone with deep resentment.

“Yeah,” Derek said, walking past him, heading for the stairs, “you definitely got ripped off.”

“Thanks for the clarification, asshole,” Stiles muttered to himself, gathering the pieces of the phone and chucking them back in the box they’d come in. He laid his head on the table, feeling defeated. 

* * *

Stiles had retired up to the room he was staying in, attempted fixing the phone a few more times, and eventually had given up and decided to leave a review on the sellers’ advertisement. He didn’t leave anything too harsh, just that he felt scammed and probably wouldn’t purchase from them again.

He’d checked his emails and once again been faced with the fact that nobody seemed particularly interested in his CV. He was tempted to ask his dad whether they needed anyone in the mail room during the winter break and if his dad could use his sheriff position to get him the job automatically – when there was a knock on the bedroom door. 

He looked at the door, slightly terrified. His dad was working that night so it only left one other person. He quickly pulled out the plug on the iMac, turning it off instantly, and jumped onto the bed.

“Uh…come in!”

The door opened slowly and Derek’s head popped into the room. The reality that he was living in Derek’s house was still shocking to Stiles. 

“Everything okay?”

Stiles nodded, “yeah why?”

“I heard you say ‘shit’ when I knocked on the door,” Derek said. 

His expression at the moment was hard to read, and it put Stiles little on edge. Especially because right now, he didn’t know how to respond to what Derek had said. 

“Not important,” Derek decided. He opened the door wider and let himself in. He was holding something in his hands. 

“What’s up?” Stiles tried to make his voice sound like he wasn’t terrified that this was a murder attempt.

“I know you don’t have a phone,” Derek said, not looking directly at Stiles and more over his shoulder at the wall behind him, “I know you got scammed by that online seller. So. Here.”

He shoved the box in Stiles face, who moved back to get a better look at it. The box was black and had shiny lettering on it. He saw the word Samsung on the box, and his eyes widened as he looked at the model.

“No way dude, I can’t accept that,” Stiles said, shaking his head, temporarily forgetting to be afraid that this might be some ploy against him. He looked up at Derek, his eyes wide, “this is way too much – I bought a secondhand iPhone off the internet that only cost $200, this has to be like-.”

“It’s just a phone Stiles,” Derek said, sounding exasperated, “I know you need one, so I got you one. It’s a necessity-.”

“Not one of the latest models though! You could have just gotten me something cheaper-.”

Derek sighed, looking like he regretted walking into the room. 

In the lamplight though, the letters shimmered prettily on the box, making it so much more tempting to take up the offer. 

“If it’s so hard for you to accept,” Derek said slowly, “just…pay me back when you get a job. Okay?”

Stiles sat there contemplating it, “uh…no interest?”

Derek shook his head.

“Deal!” He said, sounding a little over eager. He ran his thumbnail over the sticker keeping the box together and opened it, revealing the brand new phone, earphones and charger inside.

“Damn…this looks fancy,” Stiles said, “before it got burned to shit, I only had an old Samsung and not even one of the main models-.”

He looked up at Derek as he realised his rambling might not be Derek’s version of gratitude.

“Thanks,” Stiles said, giving Derek an awkward smile.

Derek shrugged in his leather jacket, still wearing the clothes he had been wearing all day, unlike Stiles who had changed into his pyjamas a few hours ago, “don’t mention it,” he turned around and started walking towards the door, when he stopped.

“Something wrong?” Stiles asked, nervousness entering his voice again.

“I forgot,” Derek said, digging around in his leather jacket pocket, “the phone came with these. I have no use for them – so you may as well have them.”

He threw a smaller, white box onto the bed. Stiles peered at it curiously and felt his eyes widen again. It was a pair of wireless earbuds. 

“Dude, you can’t do that-!” 

But Derek had already gone.

* * *

Stiles had stayed up all night setting up his phone and messaging the numbers he had memorised with his new number. He had Scott and Melissa’s numbers in there, as well as Lydia’s and his dads. That was about it.

He ended up installing Facebook and Twitter and a few job searching apps. He added his new number to his CV, which he edited without the help of the iMac – he hadn’t been able to do any of this stuff on his old phone. 

He was now sitting outside in the backyard with a hot coffee, looking at the snow. There was quite a bit of it, and if he were at his place he would have invited Scott over to try and make something out of it. But, he didn’t feel comfortable – he didn’t know whether he was allowed to invite people over – he knew he wasn’t allowed to have parties, which wouldn’t have happened even without the rule in place – but there had been nothing in the rules about inviting people over. But he wasn’t ready to bend the rules just yet.

His dad was at work again, and he’d just gotten a message saying that he was going to be home late. He had no idea where Derek was, but knew his car was still in the driveway. 

He ended up falling asleep on the bench, the brightness of the snow still visible behind his eyelids. 

* * *

He was shaken awake – it was dark outside, and absolutely freezing.

“Stiles- Stiles wake up!”

Stiles sat up slowly, his body aching from discomfort, his body shivering from the cold. 

Derek was standing in front of him in nothing but jeans and a Henley, in comparison to Stiles’ jacket, hoodie and jeans combo. Yet, he was colder than Derek. 

“I’ve been looking for you for the last half an hour,” Derek said, sounding irritated. He grabbed Stiles by his arms and helped him stand up, before dragging him over to the back door. Stiles didn’t argue as he was lead towards the light of the kitchen and the warmth of the house. As the back door opened, the difference in temperature was startling. Stiles’ teeth continued chattering, he was sure he was going to chip something.

He barely paid attention as the door was slammed shut behind him and he was dragged over to one of the kitchen chairs. He could smell something meaty and savoury in the kitchen, and his stomach rumbled. 

“Why were you outside?” Derek asked, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Stiles didn’t really know what to say. The last thing he remembered was sitting out there with his coffee. Where did his coffee mug even go? 

“I was just getting some fresh air…didn’t know you were home,” Stiles lied, “I was out there this morning.”

Derek frowned, “you’ve been out there all day?”

Stiles sighed, his body still shaking, “I-I must have n-napped.”

Derek made an exasperated noise and headed towards the kitchen. Stiles didn’t know what to do with himself, did he get up and leave now? Did he wait for Derek to come back and have another go at him? 

He didn’t have much time to decide whether to stay, or run upstairs and bury himself in the guest bed, because Derek returned carrying a steaming bowl of what looked like a stew. It explained the amazing smell in the kitchen.

Stiles’s teeth continued to chatter as Derek put the bowl down in front of Stiles seat, and put a soup spoon next to the bowl. If Stiles hadn’t been so could, he might have made a sarcastic comment about the spoon, or even joke about being surprised that Derek could cook – though he did make some version of that joke every time Derek made something for them to eat, rather than ordering takeout.

“It’s hot,” Derek murmured, heading back into the kitchen without another word. Stiles wanted to call out a thank you, but instead, he found himself reaching towards the spoon and putting it in his bowl, his mouth practically watering at the sight of the steaming hot vegetables and meat in front of him.

Stiles felt oddly embarrassed at having been found outside in the shivering cold, but he truly didn’t remember falling a sleep. One minute, he’d been sitting there with his coffee, enjoying the view, enjoying the quiet. The next, Derek Hale was yelling in his face – not exactly a pleasant thing to wake up to either.

He wished he could explain what was going on, but he didn’t want to sound insane.

He didn’t want to give anyone anything to worry about. 

He heard a door near the kitchen close, and then Derek walked past the table, carrying his own bowl of stew. He didn’t even glance at Stiles as he headed for the stairs, and made his way up them hastily. 

Stiles sighed.

Alone again.


	6. Burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a bit longer! I really hope you all enjoy it!

**CHAPTER SIX**

<strike>burn</strike>

Stiles was getting used to be being practically home alone. His dad would typically work during the day and Derek would sit upstairs doing whatever the hell he was doing. Stiles would stay on the ground floor, enjoying the large TV and Derek’s Netflix subscription, as well as the surround sound – though he didn’t really turn it up all that high, just in case he pissed off Derek. Derek didn’t know Stiles had been using his Netflix. Stiles had added his name to the account a week ago to see how long it would take for Derek to notice, but the grumpy sourwolf hadn’t said a word about it. 

It had become one of Stiles’ favourite past-times to get a little rise out of the older male. Enough to bother him slightly, get a reaction, but not enough for him and his dad to end up on the street. He was sure Derek knew it was all just fun and games, because majority of the time, he would just roll his eyes.

The issue was that Stiles was bored. Yes, the house had massive TVs and sound systems and a large collection of books and CDs, but other than that Stiles found himself walking around the house, doing the same thing every day and it was starting to drive him insane.

But he couldn’t will himself to leave the house. 

He’d have to be stupid if he didn’t see the concerned side glances from his father and the subtly wary looks from Derek. He didn’t know if he’d had more sleep walking issues lately, he didn’t know if he’d lost time during the day again, but he wasn’t willing to risk it. He didn’t know if Derek had been texting Scott about Stiles’s abnormal behaviour, but he didn’t feel like being a burden on his best friend, who had his own problems to deal with.

Stiles felt like a burden. 

* * *

  
Derek sat back on the couch in the library, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and pointer finger, feeling stressed, exhausted, and overall quite done with everything. 

The Stilinski’s had been living in his house for almost a month. They weren’t chaotic, they were quite respectful, he had no issues with them whatsoever. The only thing that worried him was Stiles. 

Noah Stilinski had called him about three months ago. Derek had picked up on the first ring due to how odd it was he was getting a call from the Sheriff. The man had sounded worried, scared even, as he had explained the situation – that Stiles had been sleep walking, how he had been turning up in places he shouldn’t have been. 

Derek had actually felt goosebumps travel along his skin when Noah had spoken about how one night, Stiles had been found standing at the end of his bed, looking at him with closed eyes.

Since the phone call, Derek had been looking into the situation. He’d spent long, late nights studying until he fell asleep at his desk in his office. He had started studying in the early hours of the morning and only taken breaks to turn the light on once it got dark. But he had managed to find nothing. He knew it was highly unlikely that what Stiles was experiencing was new – so he was just looking in all the wrong places. 

But which direction did he look in?

When Noah had called later the morning of the fire incident, Derek had automatically suggested that Noah and Stiles come live with him while they got their life back together. Noah had been hesitant, until Derek had said it would be good to experience Stiles’s unusualness first hand.

So, they’d come up with an explanation in the mean time. That Derek had coincidentally been on the list of volunteers for temporary housing agreements. Noah pretended not to know. It was simple, and so far, Stiles hadn’t seemed too suspicious about any of it. 

Derek was on no such list – nobody would willingly stay with Derek. People in this neighbourhood still side eyed him warily – even though he was living in a nice upscale neighbourhood, everyone still thought he was nothing more than a shady criminal. It would have bothered Derek if he hadn’t gotten used to it years ago. Now it was just another thing to roll his eyes at. 

He sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the couch, and looked at the coffee table in front of him. It was filled with notes, and theories, and multiple books opened to various pages – but all of it, to be quite honest, was useless. 

A loud sound went off downstairs, causing Derek to jump. Anger radiated through him for a moment, as he was about to yell out the door for Stiles to turn whatever he was watching down, when he realised that the sound was now in the middle of the hallway as well.

He got up and raced over to the hallway, the loud beeping irritating his eardrums. 

He could barely hear Stiles’s panicked ‘shit, shit, shit,’ from the stairs as he ran over to then, the smoke alarm blaring in his ears, the smell all too familiar. 

* * *

Luckily for Stiles, there had been a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. Not that Stiles had known that, but Derek had ran down the stairs and headed straight for the kitchen, and ran back into the lounge room. The fire had been out in seconds, and had been much better than Stiles’s failed attempt at getting the fire out, which had been to grab one of the pillows from the other end of the couch, which had caught on fire eventually as well.

Stiles stood there, looking down at the destroyed couch with panic filled eyes. He looked like he was about to cry.

“What happened?” Derek demanded, looking between Stiles and the couch, which was still smoking. The alarms were still going off, but neither of them made a move to fix that. 

“I don’t know,” Stiles said, looking anywhere but at Derek, or what was left over of the couch. The carpet around him was covered in white, as was the TV and the speakers. He hoped for his wallets sake that they weren’t ruined as well, “uh…I’ll pay for the couch.”

Derek shook his head, even though Stiles wasn’t looking at him, “I don’t want your money. I just want to know how the hell the couch ended up on fire.”

Stiles looked like he was about to have a panic attack, which Derek didn’t really know how to help him through – Derek hadn’t had a panic attack himself in years. So, he tried his hardest to calm down, even though his heart was still hammering a consistent beat in his chest. 

“Just…accidents happen,” Derek said, heading over to the window and opening it, in an attempt to air out the house, “I’ll sort this out. Go upstairs.”

Stiles went to say something, but seemed to think better of it. He quickly headed over to the stairs and raced up them before anything else could be said. Before Derek could change his mind. 

Derek watched him go, wishing he could have said something more helpful than to send him to his room like he was nothing more than a disobedient child. But, fire still made him anxious, ever since his family had died in that fire and he hadn’t been able to do anything. The fire in the lounge room had sent him back a bit – he was surprised that he himself hadn’t curled up into a ball in the corner and just let the place fall apart around him. But, he’d pushed through. He’d gone to the kitchen and gotten the fire extinguisher. 

He shook his head, looking down at the mess in front of him. He didn’t care about the couch, or the TV and speakers. He couldn’t give a shit if any of it was damaged beyond repair – it was all replaceable. 

He knew one thing for certain though, as he started looking around the mess of black ash on the floor. 

Stiles had somehow started the fire in the lounge room today, and he was certain the other man didn’t know how he did it either. He had seemed too panicked about it, and Stiles had never been a fantastic actor. 

He was also certain that Stiles had started the fire that had burned the Stilinski family house to the ground.

* * *

  
He explained to the sheriff privately what had happened once the man got home from work. Stiles was still upstairs and had been ever since Derek had told him to. Derek had gone up there a few times just to listen outside the door. He had heard Stiles typing on the keyboard of the iMac and left him to it. He knew Stiles didn’t really want Derek to know he’d been using it anyway.

“You think he burned the house down on purpose?” Noah asked, sounding shocked and confused.

Derek shook his head hastily, holding a notebook in his hand – different to his own personal journal that he had written the rules in. This book was black and worn and had his father’s handwriting in it, “absolutely not – but I do think Stiles did it. I think it was an accident, and either Stiles is confused about how it happened, or he didn’t even know he did it,” Derek said. He opened the notebook and turned to a page that he had read over a billion times as a teenager, fascinated about the information in it. 

This notebook that had been his fathers had honestly read like an encyclopaedia on mythical creatures. Derek, with limited experience at the time, had assumed it was all conspiracy and fairy tales. Derek had only remembered about it after the incident had rattled him – and apparently woken up his brain a little bit. 

He turned the pages, enjoying the sound they made. The pages were old and stained – mostly with coffee and the marks of ageing.

“When I was a kid, my dad used to write about mythical creatures and stuff,” Derek found the page he was looking for – it was one of his favourites, “I thought it was all make believe – but,” he showed the page to the sheriff, who was looking at Derek as if he had lost his mind. 

“You think…Stiles…is…what?”

“No,” Derek shook his head, “this is all bullshit, but I do think some of the information on this page can help me narrow it down.”

Noah looked at him, almost disapprovingly, “mages aren’t real.”

Derek sighed through his nose, “not saying that they are.”

Noah shrugged, sitting down at the kitchen table, looking exhausted. No matter how the day went, Derek noticed, Noah always looked exhausted. He wondered if the older man had been sleeping well. He didn’t want to ask, as he felt like the question was intrusive, and if he were honest, maybe a little too out of character for him.

“You know, you were never this studious as a kid,” Noah said, sipping the coffee he’d made for himself earlier, “at least – not at school.”

Derek snorted, “I was actually really smart. I also just enjoyed getting in trouble. It got my dads attention.”

“Daddy issues, huh?” Noah asked, peering over at him over the rim of his mug. 

The term caused Derek to scrunch up his nose a little bit. He wasn’t a fan of the term at all, and Peter had mocked him with it incessantly over the years. 

“He was just always working, or paying attention to my older sister,” Derek shrugged, ignoring the comment, “I don’t know. Seemed logical at the time.”

Noah chuckled, “the amount of things I had to clean off of your record,” he shook his head, almost fondly, “and I could only clean so much up, legally.”

Derek smiled, he remembered breaking into the station once with Scott, Stiles and Lydia. Out of curiosity he had opened up his file and looked at everything he had been charged for. His teenage years, before everything well and truly went to hell, had been chaotic to say the least. He regretted the mess he had made of himself, with all the underage and public drinking, vandalism and theft under his name. But it had brought him the attention he had craved from his father. He had been made to stay in the house, and train more. He had been trained to be more disciplined, as his father had assumed that his lack of discipline had been the true alpha in him, needing to be freed. Needing to run and control. 

Obviously, his father had been wrong. Derek was no true alpha – and at first, that had angered him. Especially once his father had died – he felt like he’d let the man down. Now – he was okay with it. He was okay with doing his own thing and living with the benefits of his powers. 

“I appreciate that you cleaned it up though,” Derek said, “I almost didn’t get into college because of some of it.”

“Didn’t you get kicked out of college?” Noah asked. Derek could tell by the mans expression that he was trying to figure out whether this was too rude of a question to ask.

“Yes,” Derek admitted, sheepishly, “someone from another pack caused some trouble and I ended up screwing up and getting myself kicked out. I regret it.”

Noah finished his coffee and put down his mug on the table with a light thud sound, “it’s crazy how much I don’t know about this town. How many cases now make so much sense, now that I know the supernatural side of it all,” Noah shook his head. He looked more tired than ever, “do you know how many cases I have solved now, with my knowledge, that I can’t even tell anyone about?” He looked sad, “there are so many missing person’s cases. Some that I know for a fact lead to the missing person being dead. Worse – some are alive. But I can’t explain how I know without sounding crazy,” he rubbed at his eyes, out of frustration or tiredness, Derek wasn’t sure, “there is so much closure I could be giving to families, but I can’t do anything because they would only ask more questions than I could sanely answer.”

He sighed, “and I really wish my son had never been mixed up in all of this.”

Derek didn’t say anything. But as he looked at the tired and stressed man in front of him, he wished neither of the Stilinski’s had gotten thrown into this mess, this world, either.

Noah sighed and got up suddenly, running a hand through his hair, he muttered, “with my next pay check, I’m buying myself some whisky.”

Derek gave an amused smile, but deep down, he just wished he could fix everything for the man in front of him, and the man typing away upstairs.

* * *

His nose wouldn’t stop fucking bleeding.

He’d ended up grabbing one of his least favourite shirts from the bag of second hand stuff and been using it as a tissue, due to the fact that he didn’t want to leave the room. It had started bleeding an hour after the incident, and pretty much hadn’t stopped since. 

Stiles knew he should have been more worried about that fact, but the truth was, Stiles felt numb. He’d fucked up so badly, and he didn’t even really know how it had happened. He had been looking up online, whether spontaneous human combustion where the person lived was a thing but apparently that was all up in the air as a conspiracy theory and nothing more. He’d looked up whether it had been because of the amount of technology in the room, or whether it had been because of the material of his jeans on the material of the couch – all of it was slightly crazy, which was why Stiles had been looking it up while on Incognito Mode – and it was crazy enough that literally nothing came up. 

His nose had bled onto the keyboard with him even noticing.

He growled in frustration and grabbed the keyboard off the desk, trying to wipe away the blood furiously. But it was kinda pointless with the amount of blood that had gotten on the shirt. 

There was a knock on the door that startled Stiles into dropping the keyboard loudly back on the desk. He turned to look at the door, almost in fear. He didn’t really want to be seen by anyone by now, especially not Derek. But, he got up shakily, quickly wiped at his face again and glanced at his reflection in the glass of the desk, before heading over the door and opening it slightly.

Derek stood there. Stiles couldn’t tell what the look on his face was, but he opened the door a little bit wider.

“Hi,” Stiles muttered, feeling crazy anxious.

“Hey,” Derek said, looking at Stiles oddly, “why is your nose so red?” He asked. Stiles had hoped the man wouldn’t have noticed, but shock horror – he had. 

Stiles shrugged, “I have a bit of a cold. Probably from falling asleep in the cold the other day,” he said with a slight laugh that didn’t sound at all genuine.

Derek frowned but didn’t say anything.

“Soooo…” Stiles stood there awkwardly, tapping his foot on the floor for something to do, “you after anything?”

“You need to get out of the house,” Derek said.

Stiles heart fell to his stomach. He’d fucked up bad and he should have known this was coming, but he had hoped that the hours between when he had come upstairs and now had been indicative of the fact that Derek had decided to let them stay here. 

Stiles nodded, “can it wait until morning…? I’ll be out of your hair but…now isn’t the best time-.”

“Uh…yeah it’ll have to wait until morning,” Derek said, looking confused, “shops don’t open until nine.”

Now it was Stiles’ turn to be confused, “what does kicking me out have to do with when shops open?”

Derek looked shocked, but then a little amused, “I’m not kicking you out, idiot,” he rolled his eyes. Stiles noticed that this was something Derek regularly did, “I don’t know if you noticed, but I need a new couch.”

This comment caused Stiles to wince, but Derek continued to speak.

“I have nothing to do tomorrow and you haven’t left the house since you moved in. As punishment for destroying my couch, I thought you could come and help me pick a replacement.”

Stiles didn’t know what to say. In comparison to getting himself and his dad kicked out and making the two of them effectively homeless, this ‘punishment’ was a lot more tame. He was being given a chance, and that was something he was grateful for. But he didn’t feel ready to leave the house. Because that meant come back here, to a place that looked nothing like his old home. It would just be another terrible reminder of everything that he had lost. 

But, Derek didn’t know about his crazy thinking process. So he sighed, and nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll come with,” Stiles muttered, giving Derek a small smile, “uh…thanks for not kicking me or my dad out.”

Derek shrugged, as if it were no big deal, “Admittedly ‘do not turn my furniture to ash,’ wasn’t a part of the rules I wrote out,” he said, “but I might just add it. There better not be a next time.”

Stiles snorted, “yeah, there won’t be.”

Derek nodded and walked down the hallway, not saying anything else. Stiles popped his head out and watched as Derek headed into the library and closed the door behind him. He sighed a large sigh of relief.

He closed the door and turned back to look at the room. He didn’t know how, but Stiles suddenly felt much better.


	7. Couches and Cupholders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I started writing this chapter a while ago, sorry for the delay! I managed to successfully finish NaNoWriMo! Also, the reason for the delay is because for the last few days, I’ve been super nervous about proposing to my girlfriend. But on the 30th of November, she agreed to marry me! So, special shout out to my fiancée, Jasmine. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and this fanfic. Thank you.

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

<strike>couches and cupholders</strike>

Stiles woke with a start at 3am. He was covered head to toe in sweat, and his body felt like it was burning. He looked around the room, his eyes darting wildly, looking at his dark surroundings. He looked down at his pyjama clad body, and looked at his bed, noticing that the sweat wasn’t limited to his body, but had started dampening the sheets underneath him too. He was breathing heavily, and if he didn’t do something soon it would probably lead to a panic attack. He sat up higher and moved the pillows to support his back, and started doing the breathing exercises he’d been taught to use when he was ten, and first started exhibiting signs of anxiety. The idea was to breathe in for four seconds, hold it in for seven seconds, and then breathe out for eight seconds. _4-7-8, 4-7-8, 4-7-8, 4-7-8_…

When Stiles felt like he’d gotten his breathing under control, he looked around the room again. The sweat on his body had turned cold and it made him feel gross. He felt relieved to find the room was still completely dark. The only light emanating from his phone charger.

He sighed.

For a moment he had been sure that his entire body was on fire.

He climbed out of the bed and rifled through the bag of clothing he still hadn’t put away in the drawers in the room, out of sheer denial that he was going to be living here for a long period of time. He grabbed a shirt and a pair of jeans, because even though it was 3am, he didn’t think he was going to be getting back to sleep any time soon. He grabbed some clean underwear that he’d bought online recently, even though it had put quite the dent in his savings account, and headed out of the room. 

He headed for the bathroom across from him in the hall, enjoying the way the room lit up automatically for him. The first time he’d realised that the lights were sensor, it had scared the shit out of him, thinking he’d walked in on someone in the bathroom. 

He clean clothes on the seat, in their unfolded wrinkly glory, and started peeling off the sweaty layers he had gone to sleep in. He paid no attention to his body in the mirror, knowing it was probably thinner than the last time he had checked – he hadn’t really had much of an appetite lately. Food was the least of his growing number of problems.

He turned the taps and tested the temperature of the water with his hand before stepping in. But as soon as the water hit his chest, it felt like it was burning him alive. What had been fine on his hand, was definitely not fine anywhere else. He clamped his jaw shut in an attempt to stop himself from screaming, and quickly turned the hot water off, only leaving what little cold water had been contributing to his shower. He turned the cold water up, letting it run over his body, and instantly felt soothed.

“This totally isn’t weird at all,” Stiles muttered, grabbing some shampoo and lathering it up in his hands before running it through his hair, “totally not weird to be having a cold shower in the middle of winter.”

* * *

Stiles spent the rest of his time awake scrolling through reddit and tumblr memes on his phone. He didn’t even notice when the sun had come up, and when he looked at the time, it was 7.30, and his phone was on 42%

He put his phone on charge, got off the bed, where he had been laying on top of the blankets – he would ask Derek later about changing the linen on the bed – and headed out of the room, intending to head into kitchen, hoping his dad hadn’t left for work yet.

Sure enough, when he got down there, the sheriff of Beacon Hills was drinking from a brand new sheriff mug that he’d obviously gotten from work, reading some news site on his phone. It had taken a while to teach his dad which sites were legitimate news sources and what ones were definitely not worth reading. Cutting their Daily Mail subscription had managed to save them a few dollars in the long run.

Noah looked up from whatever he was reading to smiled at his son, “you’re awake early!” He said, sounding pleasantly surprised. 

Stiles smiled back. It almost felt normal, yanno, if you ignored the flashy kitchen and the permanent grump sitting at the kitchen table, typing away on a laptop.

“If you’re going to react like that, I’m just going to go back to bed,” Stiles said jokingly, giving his old man a smile before heading into the kitchen himself, beginning the process of making himself a coffee. If he made himself look busy like this in the mornings, normally nobody ever caught on that he never ate breakfast. Or lunch. And he always tried to make a big fuss of moving things around on his plate during dinner, but barely eating anything. 

Derek looked towards the two of them with an eyebrow cocked up. He looked like he wanted to say something, but had decided against it. Though, this reaction worried Stiles, as he was sure it was something to do with him, somehow.

“Any luck with job searching?” His dad asked, putting his mug in the sink and rinsing it. 

That dampened Stiles’ fake happy mood a little bit. He shook his head, stirring his coffee before letting his spoon fall into the sink with a clatter. He instantly shot an apologetic look at Derek, as he had learned recently that the man hated it. 

“No responses from anyone,” Stiles said with a shrug, “I’ve tried re-writing my resume several times and nobody is biting.” 

He took a sip of his coffee as an excuse to not continue the conversation. 

His dad grabbed his keys from the hook that was on the wall near the kitchen. For some reason the fact that his dad had so happily put his keys there bothered him. It seemed too homey – too accepting of the fact that this – living with Derek – was going to be a long term thing. Stiles had his keys sitting on the desk in the bedroom he’d been sleeping in, and that seemed like too much to him. But, he kept a brave face on as his dad gave him a hug and told him to not get into too much trouble – not that Stiles had really done anything recently to warrant that comment. Though he did wonder what Derek had told him about the fire that had happened – it’s not as if the man wouldn’t have noticed the slight smoking smell that had temporarily stained the house, and the couch falling apart in the lounge room.

His dad left with a soft close of the front door. Neither Derek, nor Stiles spoke until they both heard the car pull out of the driveway – his dad hadn’t bothered to put the car in the garage, despite there being five parking spaces in there.

“What time do you want to go out?” Stiles asked, busying himself with attempting to find something to eat. Some light grocery shopping had been done to put food in there that Stiles and his dad liked – but Stiles still felt the complete opposite of hunger most mornings, and throughout the day. He gingerly picked up a muesli bar. 

“I’d like to get out of here before ten,” Derek said, concentrating on the screen in front of him. 

Stiles once again found himself wondering what the man did for work. He had assumed by now that the room he wasn’t allowed to enter was some sort of office, and it made him wonder just what would be so important in there, that not entering the room had to be emphasised by a rule. In all honesty, if the rule hadn’t been there, Stiles probably wouldn’t have cared too much otherwise. But with the rule in place, what the man did in there only had Stiles more and more inspired to break the rule and find out.

“What are you going to be doing in the meantime?” Stiles asked, bouncing off the kitchen counter he had been sitting on. Something he realised bothered Derek – he could tell – but surprisingly the sourwolf hadn’t actually told him to stop doing it. 

Derek shrugged and continued to look at the screen and seemingly scroll down the page he was on. It caused Stiles to roll his eyes – and his dad thought he was bad about being on the computer all the time.

Stiles left the kitchen and walked past Derek, not missing the fact that when he walked past, Derek hastily closed the page and tried to subtly watch Stiles as he left the room. Stiles couldn’t be bothered badgering the perpetually grumpy looking man about what he was hiding, and decided to head up the stairs to the library. To do what, he wasn’t sure – but he needed to pass the time somehow.

* * *

He ended up watching the TV in the library while idly flicking through the pages of a book he was only semi-interested in. He had been watching the news – nothing too interesting really, something he was grateful for – when there was a knock. 

The door had been left open, and Derek was standing in the doorway awkwardly. 

“Nice shirt,” Derek commented, looking at the shirt in amusement. Stiles looked down, having forgotten what he was wearing that day. It was a pale green Henley, that was admittedly a little bit baggy on him. Not too much though, so it still looked a little stylish, and baggy on purpose. 

“Thanks,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes as he took notice of Derek’s own grey Henley, “you ready to go?” 

Derek shrugged. He was holding his laptop against his hip and looking at the TV with interest. Stiles turned his head, and found his eyes widening at what he saw. 

**DEAD BODY FOUND IN PARK**

Stiles turned the TV up, and listened to the woman who was reporting. She had shiny brown hair, brown eyes, and looked like she was wearing expensive red lipstick. He didn’t recognise her at all – she must’ve travelled from another town to tell the story.

‘_The body of a young man was found in the park this morning when three children, living across from the park, went to visit. Families in the neighbourhood have said they didn’t hear any suspicious activity last night, and specialists are working to find out when and how the body got there-_.’

“I bet it’s a homeless guy,” Stiles muttered, hoping he was right, “probably fell asleep on the bench and just froze to death. This time of year really sucks for that.”

Derek didn’t say anything, just turned the TV off, “I’m going to go grab my keys. I’ll meet you in the garage.”

That was all Derek said before he turned back around and headed down the hall. Stiles quickly jumped to his feet and headed to the room he was staying in, to grab his phone and his own set of keys. He also got changed into a less hole riddled pair of jeans.

He quickly ran down the steps, surprised he didn’t fall and break his neck while doing so, and went out the door that led into the garage. Derek was already sitting in his car, apparently messaging someone on his phone. 

Stiles unlocked his car and jumped into the driver seat, and turned to look at Derek before putting the keys in the ignition. The man looked at him with confusion.

Stiles opened the door, as Derek wound down his driver seat window.

“What’s wrong?” Stiles asked, at the same time that Derek asked him, “what are you doing?”

“Waiting for you to open the garage?” Stiles said, sounding confused. 

Derek rolled his eyes, “we’re going in my car. Why waste your fuel?” 

Stiles sighed and climbed out of his Jeep, and muttered something about taking his car.

“I’m not getting in the death trap!”

Looking at his Jeep sitting next to the shiny modernness of the Camaro, he didn’t feel too inspired to argue. He just got into the passenger seat of Derek’s car, and tried not to pout too much.

* * *

Not much was said as they drove to the furniture store. Derek was more than happy to sit in silence – he hadn’t even turned the radio on. Stiles had been tempted to do it, but had settled on trying his hardest to sit still and not annoy the man driving. It was his fault they had to go to a furniture store anyway.

When they got there, the car park didn’t seem too full, and he fought he heard Derek made a pleased sound. He got out of the car without saying anything, and Stiles hastily followed. By the time he closed the door however, Derek was already half way across the car park – only turning back to lock the car with the button on his keys. 

Stiles rushed over, having to lightly jog to get to where Derek was, and only caught up with him once he’d reached the automatic opening doors. 

The furniture store had a huge bottom floor, and promised three more floors on a sign near the elevator, which detailed what each floor was for. The bottom floor was for kitchen, furniture and features. The second was for living and dining rooms. The third for bedrooms. Then it promised a fourth floor, and next to the number it just had a picture of a crown. 

Stiles snorted, “what’s that supposed to mean?” 

Derek didn’t say anything. He headed over the elevator. 

It didn’t take long for it to open, as it seemed the last person to use it had needed the bottom floor – presumably to leave the building. When they both got in, Stiles quickly reached over and pressed the blue glowing number ‘2’. He relished in his childhood enjoyment of pressing elevator buttons. Derek didn’t seem too interested in why Stiles had done it so enthusiastically – which was better than him being irritated about it.

* * *

  
The floor had it’s own multiple platforms, which Stiles quickly figured out that it might have to do with the pricing of the objects. There were a few nice tables and couches around the two hundred to four hundred dollar mark on the bottom, which Derek ignored. He headed for the top platform, which made Stiles nervous. 

The tables up here were nicer and more modern, some of them more like art pieces than any type of functioning pieces of furniture. But Derek avoided these too and went straight for the couches. Some of the couches that were there had price tags so large that Stiles would have had to work every day for 50 years straight to be able to afford them.

These were walked past as well, not even being glanced at. Derek went to a couch that pretty much looked exactly the same as the one he had owned, but with breaks in the seats for cupholders and large surfaces. 

Someone who had been tidying up the cushions on one of the other show couches rushed over to the two of them with a bright eager smile. 

“Hi there!” She said enthusiastically. He wondered if her enthusiasm was making Derek’s ears bleed, “how are you both today?” 

Derek, surprisingly, gave her a warm smile and said he was good, and asked how she was doing. Stiles looked away, feeling awkward. 

She went on to talk about the features of the couch – about how popular the model was and typically what the reviews for it were – mostly about the surface space and the amazing cupholders, that also kept your drinks cold. She pulled up their site on what was obviously a work phone and pulled up some reviews to show Derek, who looked like he had already seen the reviews. He seemed pretty sold on the model before she had said anything. 

“If you have any more questions, please, let me know,” she said, giving the two of them another big smile before heading over to another set of customers that had walked in. Stiles sensed that the girl was working on commission, because she was definitely working hard to make the sale. He continued watching her communicate with the other customers – yep, definitely commission.

“I don’t think she’s going to give you her number.”

Stiles whirled around and looked at Derek, “oh ha ha,” he said sarcastically, “not interested. At all.”

Derek shrugged, “why? She seemed nice, and kept looking at you.”

Stiles’s eyes widened, “really?” 

Derek, much to Stiles shock and irritation, looked amused, “not interested, eh?” He said, before looking down at the couch and running a hand across the material. He turned to look at the sign in front of it, that detailed some more information that the girl had missed. 

“I’m not interested, I just find it interesting if people are interested in me,” Stiles said, sounding bitter, “I need to know whether or not to dial emergency services. They might be concussed.”

It didn’t take long for Derek to decide that he wanted to buy the couch, and he headed to the counter with the salesgirl from earlier, who Stiles noticed was occasionally glancing at him. But, he definitely wasn’t interested. It wasn’t that she wasn’t pretty, but his life was too chaotic right now. Plus, he was technically homeless. 

Derek paid for same day delivery, and was told that the couch would arrive sometime between 2.30 and 3pm. He said he’d be looking forward to it, and thanked them again before heading over towards the elevator, putting his card back into his wallet and waiting for the door to open. 

It once again opened instantly, and the two of them stepped inside. This time, Derek reached over and pressed the button for the first/ground floor. 

“How much was that couch worth?” Stiles asked with a wince.

Derek shrugged, “I didn’t really see the price tag, I just know I liked the couch. I thought you might appreciate the cupholders.”

Stiles didn’t say anything, but did wonder why Derek had bought a couch with Stiles in mind, considering Stiles was hoping they wouldn’t have to live with Derek for very long.


	8. Pout - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! I would like to apologise for the delay in this chapter. It's a crazy busy time of year - Christmas is coming up and I just celebrated my 22nd birthday, which is also insane! I feel old. I also got my laptop fixed so now the remainder of this fic is probably going to be finished on my laptop, which I much prefer writing on. Make sure to bookmark this fic and keep an eye on it! Because I will be continuing to write it!

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

<strike>pout</strike>

<strike>pt. I</strike>

Fear flooded through Stiles as he woke up with a start.

He had been burning again. But he was grateful to find that the only source of light in the room was coming from the sun, struggling to break in through his curtains.

From downstairs, he heard a knock on the door, that woke him up entirely. He looked at the time, 7:03am. There was no way that Derek would have ordered food _in the morning_. So he rushed over to his bedroom window and pulled away the curtain.

He recognised the car that was in the driveway, pretty much instantly, and felt himself shake nervously. What was Chris Argent doing here at seven in the morning?

* * *

His dad had gone to work, he knew that much. He’d heard his dad answering a phone call early this morning, and knew instantly he was being called in. It made him wonder what was going on, and he itched to turn on the news. But he also wanted to know why Chris Argent was currently drinking coffee in Derek’s kitchen like he hadn’t tried killing Derek a few years ago.

“Good morning Stiles,” Chris said, looking at him and giving him a small smile. Stiles felt nervous about the man, because as soon as he saw him, he couldn’t help thinking about the role he played in his daughters’ death. But he was polite. He returned the small smile and the good morning, and sat down at the table, across from Derek, who once again had his face in his laptop screen.

“Dude, seriously, what’s so important on there?” Stiles asked, hating how quiet the room was, as Chris looked at his phone screen and Derek started typing away.

There was a snort from the kitchen, which made Stiles turn his head to look. Chris looked amused, “you really don’t know?” He asked, sounding perplexed, “I thought you would have broken into his laptop by now to find out.”

Stiles couldn’t deny that would have been his normal behavior, “I’ve been a bit preoccupied,” he admitted, sounding a little ashamed of himself for not doing just as Chris had said.

Derek didn’t participate in the conversation around him but started writing something in the journal next to him. Another thing that Stiles probably would have read through by now if he was acting more himself.

“So…what do you do for work then Derek?”

Derek shrugged and kept writing.

“He’s a bounty hunter,” Chris said, putting his mug in the sink, but not rinsing it. He knew he would probably hear Derek muttering about it later. He just hoped he didn’t get the blame for it, “I thought he might be able to put his supernatural abilities to good use.”

Stiles sat there, a little shocked, “bounty hunting is a real job? I thought that was just, like, movie stuff.”

“You believe the existence of any supernatural creature at the drop of a hat, but you feel surprised by the existence of bounty hunters?” Derek asked, sounding a little amused, “I’m surprised you didn’t find an ad online somewhere.”

Stiles rolled his eyes at the jab, “if there were going to be ads for bounty hunters, that would be something reserved for the dark web-.”

There was a sound inside the kitchen which made Stiles jump, which made him feel silly once he realised that it was just Chris’s phones ringtone. He picked it up and answered with some form of greeting that Stiles didn’t really hear. He turned to Derek, who was poised to close his laptop at any moment, looking at the phone like he was listening into the conversation – which he probably very well was, considering his amazing werewolf hearing.

“We’ll be there in half an hour,” Chris said, sounding determined, “just, make sure you keep it there. Thanks,” he hung up without saying goodbye and looked over to Derek, who had now closed his laptop and was picking up his things.

“Meet you in the car,” Chris said, “we’re taking mine this time. They know what yours looks like.”

Stiles had a billion questions, and started rapidly firing them like bullets, “where are you going? Can I come?”

Both men, at the same time, in the same deadpan tone, said, “no.”

* * *

Chris was driving, and something most people didn’t know about Chris is that he was a crazy good driver, specifically good at getaway driving.

“You don’t trust these people,” Derek stated. He could tell by the way Chris had spoken to them on the phone and the way that Chris was driving.

“Absolutely not,” Chris said, turning left into an alleyway, that only just fit the car, “I also don’t trust that they actually have what they claim they have.”

Derek frowned, “what do they claim they have?”

Chris sighed. Continuing to look ahead, driving through the alleyway until they made it onto another stretch of road. Chris was good for knowing shortcuts, “you know how you told me about Stiles and his little problem?”

Derek looked at him. Waiting.

“I got into contact with a few old, uh, co-workers.”

“Hunters.”

Chris rolled his eyes, “yeah, hunters.”

They turned onto another road, a dirt one, that was leading up to a small looking faraway property. The road was lined with the corpses of trees, their leaves probably hidden underneath the snow. The dirt road was a mix of snow and brown sludge. Derek hoped it wouldn’t be too much trouble to drive through, and was grateful that Chris had been adamant about taking his own car for the trip.

“Anyway, they think they’ve found a magic-user. But also, these guys are assholes, and I wouldn’t trust them to actually give me something like this without a massive price.”

Derek sighed, “I’ve started working under the assumption that it’s just the aftermath of the Nogitsune and that Stiles just hasn’t recovered from that. I think these guys are playing you-.”

“I read what your father wrote in that book of his,” Chris said, making Derek scowl.

“How the-?”

“I think your old man was onto something,” Chris said, pulling up and parking a little bit away from the entrance of the building they had pulled up to. It was more like a massive shed, and it made Derek a little nervous. He didn’t like how far Chris had parked from the entrance – because if they needed a quick getaway, those few seconds of running to the car could be fatal. But he trusted Chris. He was sure the older man knew what he was doing.

He shut off the car but didn’t make a move to get out.

“Like what?” Derek sounded surprised, rather than offended or irritated over Chris going through his fathers’ book, “I’ve read through the pages almost a billion times. There’s nothing in there that hints at any of it being real-.”

Chris was shaking his head, “I sent out a notice to a couple of old work pals that I was looking for something in particular. They think they’ve found it. I want to question them.”

Derek wanted to know so much more but knew he wasn’t going to get too much more than that. Chris exited the car, and Derek eagerly moved to do the same.

But the car door was locked.

He looked up and saw Chris Argent standing at the window, looking a little apologetic. Derek pressed the button to wind down the window and looked up at Chris with mild confusion and irritation.

“I can’t have you coming in there with me,” Chris said, looking a little nervous, “they’re old hunters, and they will definitely try to take you down, regardless of how I treat you,” he looked toward the shed, “they won’t try to pull one over on me though. So, you need to stay here.”

Derek glowered at the older man, but wound the window back up and sat in the car. His arms crossed in front of him. Chris nodded and started heading towards the shed, and Derek watched him with keen eyes. It was the only way he felt useful.

His phone beeped with a message tone, and he uncrossed his arms to pick it up and read it.

**Chris Argent: ** _there’s no need to pout, you know._


	9. Pout - Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I am so so sorry for the delay in this chapter. So much happened between this chapter and the last one. There was Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Years - I've been trying my hardest to get ready for this year, and get ready to start my first year in my new degree which I am super nervous about starting! I hope that this chapter makes up for the lack of updates, and I hope that you enjoy the content!
> 
> I'm going to try my hardest to update more frequently, with better content. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed Christmas, and I hope the New Year has started off well for you all x

**CHAPTER NINE**

<strike>pout</strike>

<strike> pt. II</strike>

With his dad not being home, and with Derek out of the house as well, Stiles found himself feeling quite bored. He didn’t often hang out with Derek – in fact, the two arguably avoided each other when they were both in the house – but knowing for a fact that the man wasn’t home, probably upstairs doing something lamely Derek, made Stiles feel oddly lonely.

It had been fun for the first half an hour. It was like when you’re thirteen and you've been left home alone for the first time ever. You sneak into the kitchen and snack on all your favorite foods, just enough so you satisfy your cravings but not enough for your parents to notice that anything has gone missing from the cupboards. You go on your computer and you look at all the naughty sites you’re not allowed to go on and thank the tech gods for the invention of Incognito Mode. You watch all those YouTube videos you have saved in your ‘Watch Later’ folder with the volume turned way up. Maybe you walk around the house naked just out of spite.

Stiles tried doing the first thing and found the sight of protein bars and ingredients for salads to be disappointing. He ended up eating a bag of cheese like a greedy goblin, as it was the only edible thing to be found. Derek was one of those people who did grocery shopping ever night, or ordered food every night, rather than do big rounds of grocery shopping like he and his dad used to do.

Stiles had connected his new phone to the TV in the library with the screen mirroring feature and ended up watching a bunch of YouTube videos on his account, rather than using Derek’s account that was connected to the TV – he didn’t need to fill Derek’s recommendations with SMOSH’s ‘Try Not To Laugh’ videos – but he found himself getting bored quickly, especially with the lack of snacks to keep him from thinking about his stomach too much.

He headed back to the room he was staying in eventually. He didn’t make a move to lay on his bed or sit in the desk chair in front of the computer. He just looked around to see if there was anything he could do. Arguably, he could start emptying out the latest clothes donation bag into the drawers that had been sitting there, empty, since they had been invited into Derek’s home. They weren’t empty because Stiles was refusing to get comfortable – no, now it was just because they had been here for so long, and he had rejected the idea for so long, there didn’t seem like much of a point.

But when he had asked his dad recently how finances were going, his dad had looked past him, above his shoulder, and said things were going well.

Stiles sighed and headed over to the bag. This lot of clothes had come from the same place the first bag had come from. It was bigger, and apparently the donation had come in two weeks before their home had burnt down. They had been ready to put it out for sale, and Stiles felt bad that the center would be losing some profit, but at the same time, he was thankful for more clothes. He had started wearing the same shirt three or four times in a row – as some of the shirts just hung on him too loosely, and some of them even came up too short and hung just above his waistline.

Once again, the clothing was old Henley’s, some band tee’s, and some dark jeans. There were also some office clothes in there, which Stiles was thankful for – because while he had been applying for thousands of jobs, he actually had no clothing to go to interviews in, and he hadn’t been able to afford any after the phone scam.

After putting all his clothes away, he left the room with the two empty black garbage bags. He was about to head down the stairs to the kitchen to put them in the drawer – so they could be recycled and used as actual garbage bags this time around – when he noticed the door at the end in the hall.

His mind flashed back to the words in Derek’s journal.

The fourth rule. It had been written in all capital letters, stressing just how important the rule was. For what reason, Stiles had always wondered.

Derek had even used manners to deter them from entering the room. Though, he was sure when Derek wrote the rule, he wasn’t worried about his dad being the one who broke it. Stiles knew full well that the rule had been directed at him.

Stiles had to admit – he was nosy and overly curious, and at the best of times it got him in trouble. At the worst of times, it nearly got him killed.

But, what harm could it possibly do to have a lock around? Hell, if Derek was so worried about Stiles checking everything out, surely, he would have a lock fitting on the door anyway? Stiles started walking towards the end of the hallway on the left, ignoring the option of going downstairs as he had originally intended.

He told himself that if the room was locked, then he would stop trying and he’d continue on with his day, hopefully with Derek none the wiser that Stiles had even _attempted _to get in the room.

While thinking about it, and whether or not breaking the rules would be worth it, he ended up in front of the door with his hand on the handle.

He attempted to turn it, and it wouldn’t budge. He sighed and shrugged, and went to turn away to head downstairs when he heard something in the door click.

He cocked up his brow, startled and confused, he slowly reached toward the door again and turned the handle. Sure enough, it turned all the way, and the door in front of him opened without argument.

With a small frown, Stiles opened the door all the way and took his first step into the room.

He didn’t know what he expected. For an alarm to go off? For Derek to secretly be behind the door, ready to growl in his face at the violation of privacy? And as for the contents of the room, he hadn’t been sure what to expect either. Some Fifty Shades level bullshit Red Room of Pain? Or a supernatural torture chamber? When the door had unlocked by itself, he had been concerned that maybe somebody had been inside. But there wasn’t a soul in the room.

There was a desk in the corner with a multi-screen desktop setup. There were one or two empty coffee mugs on the desk, which was messy and very unlike Derek. There was a corkboard on the wall, with pictures, notes, and yarn – much like ones he had made himself when the pack had needed his expertise – the beauty of being the sheriff’s son was picking up a few of the sheriff’s tricks over the years.

But it appeared as if Derek wasn’t incapable of making his own – in fact, much to Stiles’ irritation, Derek’s looked better, while looking busier than anything Stiles had created.

There were some filing cabinets closer to the door of the room, one of the drawers was sitting a little bit open – which to Stiles was an invitation to peek inside.

There were many folders inside, a lot of them Stiles skimmed over as they didn’t have too many contents. But one of the files that caught his eye was titled ‘Real Estate,’ and before his fingers skipped over it, he grabbed it out and opened it up, peering at the paperwork inside.

It was a lot thicker when you compared it to the other folders, and the first few pages were bank statements and the terms to a loan policy – a page later showed that the loan was paid off, with pretty much no interest added on to the loan. Stiles’ eyes widened at the price before him, and he continued going through the pages. He found a page with an address he recognized – it was the address for this house.

He looked at the price listed there and almost dropped the folder.

“Fucking hell,” Stiles muttered, fixing up the pages. He caught a glimpse of a piece of paper with a small list of addresses.

“He…” Stiles frowned and headed towards the window – the curtains were pulled shut, but when he pulled them open, the window had quite a good view of the cul-de-sac outside. It allowed him to view the letterboxes of the two other properties.

“He owns all the houses in the cul-de-sac,” Stiles muttered to himself, his eyes wide.

* * *

Derek was starting to fidget. He didn’t like that Chris had been gone for so long. But he hadn’t heard any disturbances, and he didn’t want to screw things up, so he stayed where he was, feeling like nothing more than a useless teenager.

‘I guess this is kind of how Stiles feels a good amount of the time,’ Derek thought to himself, looking out the window towards the building. He had sat there arguing as to whether or not it was a massive shed, or a tiny warehouse, for the first five minutes of sitting in the car. He had then decided he was insane.

‘But the thing is, Stiles wouldn’t just be sitting here…’ Derek’s fingers were itching to grab for the door handle and get out, at least so he could hear better. He’d only have to walk halfway between the shed/warehouse and the car to hear any type of conversation – his hearing was good, even for a werewolf. It was something his family had always commented on when he was younger, and something that Laura had regularly used to her advantage when their parents had been having ‘Serious Supernatural Conversation Time,’ as Cora had called it.

Derek tried hard to will himself not to get out of the car. He didn’t really feel like being on the receiving end of any of Chris’s anger – he had been on the receiving end before and knew for a fact it wasn’t a pretty feeling. But, alas, he practically lunged for the door handle and pulled harshly until the lock broke, the door swinging open. He’d pay Chris for the damages to his car later.

He didn’t bother closing the door and started heading towards the building. The closer he got, he started hearing the sounds of conversation. Much to his relief, he could hear Chris talking to someone – he sounded rather impatient, but it didn’t sound as if the man was in any danger.

“I just want you to explain how you found her,” Chris said, “you didn’t break any rules, right?”

There was a snort from the person that Chris was talking to. Their voice was deeper than Chris’, and he spoke slower.

“Since when have you cared about rules?” the man said, sounding amused, “besides, their rules don’t matter-.”

Chris sighed, Derek found himself going way past the point of halfway to the building.

“You don’t understand. Their kind doesn’t take kindly to this sort of thing-.”

“Their kind?! You are aware I can hear you, you know!” a female voice said indignantly. There was a thud, and then a groan.

“Was that necessary?” Chris’s voice asked, sounding slightly disgusted, “how is she going to answer my questions if you wind her every five minutes?”

There was an unimpressed sound, and then he heard footsteps. They were heavier than Chris’, so Derek assumed they belonged to the other man. Derek was now standing outside of the building, which he had decided was a mini-warehouse. He was leaning lightly against the sheet metal. He hoped that none of his footprints in the snow were visible from where either man stood in the warehouse.

“Now freak, you’re gonna answer this mans’ questions. Understood?”

The female voice made a disgusted sound, “you sound like you lack respect, so why should I show it?”

Another thud.

“Enough Lloyd!” Chris snapped, “in fact, I think it better if you back away entirely. Head up the stairs. You can watch the interrogation from up there if it means so much to you.”

Chris sounded like he was reprimanding a child, and much to Derek’s surprise, it seemed to work, because he heard those same heavy footfalls from earlier fade, and then move upwards. The man was going up the stairs. Derek still wasn’t willing to risk showing himself.

Derek peered around the corner slightly. He could see Chris’ back turned away from him, and a woman sitting in front of him. Chris was crouched down, and the woman was strapped to the chair, looking bruised, bloody and downright pissed off.

Chris, however, was speaking to her in a calm tone. Something that Derek had never been entitled to during his own questionings with Chris. He was going to bring that up with the man later, the asshole.

“I need you to answer these questions, it’s really important to me that you’re honest, and last I checked, some of your kinds religions have a lot of distaste for liars-.”

Much to Derek’s surprise, and slight amusement, the woman spat in Chris’ face.

“If you’d stop referring to my ‘kind’ like an idiot, I might respect you enough to give you the answers. Do you not do any research?” she growled, “or do you just pick random innocents off of the street, and hope for the best? Oh, you hunters are all the fucking same-.”

“I’m not working as a hunter right now,” Chris said, cutting her off, “and I was merely saying ‘your kind,’ as one of my questions is to ask what you are,” Derek could tell he was struggling to remain calm. The man raised an arm and ripped the saliva and disrespect off his face, “I don’t intend on hurting you – I’m not a mindless brute like the man upstairs. I just need answers.”

“How can I trust you,” she muttered, looking Chris in the eye.

Chris shrugged, “you’re just going to have to hope for the best.”

* * *

Stiles had woken the computer with a shake of the mouse and was surprised to find that the computer was unlocked. It was open on a map, and an email from Chris, as well as an excel spreadsheet. Stiles skimmed over the spreadsheet and ignored it, as to be honest looking at Derek’s finances were the least of his worries – it was the least interesting thing about Derek. He was rich, big deal! He was also a goddamn bounty hunter, and a werewolf, and also a philanthropist?

Stiles was looking through Derek’s emails, which he knew was problematic and invasive, but once again, Stiles’ favorite motto ‘what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,’ played through his head. He hadn’t looked at the one from Chris, as the words that did stand out made no sense and meant nothing to him, and he felt he didn’t have the time to dwell on it, but there were several emails between Derek and the Beacon Hills Charity Center, majority of which were finance related.

He had been donating large amounts of money to the center, as well as clothing, entertainment, and furniture.

There was an email from around the same time last year, dated on the 26th of December, thanking Derek for his generous donation of brand-new children’s toys and clothing, and wishing him a Happy Birthday for the day before.

He didn’t know what to make of the news that the sourest person he knew donated children’s toys to those in need, and for another irony kick, his birthday was on Christmas Day.

Un-fucking-believable.

* * *

“I don’t follow any of the religions,” the female mage said, her voice sounding disgusted, “those religions were made for self-important mages to morally jerk themselves off while judging others unfairly for whatever they thought unreasonable.”

Chris snorted with amusement, “fair enough,” he muttered, “but then how do I know if you’re telling the truth?”

In a tone, mocking and amused, she retorted, “you’re just going to have to hope for the best,” she smiled. It was rather grotesque as one of her teeth was missing, there was blood on her chin and her lips were bruised.

“I have it under good authority that mages are able to sense one another,” Chris responded, unflinchingly, “I need you, to be honest with me, and tell me whether or not you can sense another mage in this town.”

The mage cackled, it was slightly insane and slightly desperate. Derek struggled to not intervene – he wanted to undo the woman, even if she were to run away afterward – tying her up like this, bruised and bloody, just felt wrong to him.

“Why?” she snapped, her eyes flashing angrily, “so that you can hunt every last one of us down – besides. That only works if the mage is in our bloodline. If we want to find others outside of our bloodline, we’re stuck using Grindr like the rest of you.”

There was the squeak of a chair from upstairs, and then the heavy footfalls of the man from earlier.

“No offense Argent, but I don’t think she’s gonna answer anything you have to ask,” the man said, his voice full of amusement, “I personally think this was a waste of good huntin’ time.”

“You mean, killing innocent people,” she muttered darkly.

“No sweetheart, I’m people – you lot are monsters,” the footsteps started coming down the stairs again.

Chris turned around, he looked towards the stairs with apprehension, “Lloyd. Get back upstairs. I’m not done questioning her.”

“I think you are,” Lloyd said, sounding menacing. The man came into Derek’s view. He was taller than Chris and wider, but the man was pure muscle. He kind of put the body Derek had been working on for years to shame – but Lloyd wasn’t an attractive man. The only word that Derek could think to associate the man with was ‘brute.’

Chris looked up to Lloyd and then looked out of the corner of his eye to Derek. He didn’t look surprised whatsoever to see Derek watching the scene, but simply made a small nod.

Derek made a move.

* * *

Stiles had to admit that he had gotten distracted by all of the things on the computer. There were so many different hints that Derek had completed, and oddly enough Stiles didn’t feel like Derek was a monster for doing it. It was mostly criminals, and apparently, Derek didn’t kill anyone – he just handed them off to other people, and mostly off to law enforcements around California. From what Stiles could tell, it paid well, but not enough for Derek to be stinkin’ rich like he was. So, now he was looking through the folders on Derek’s desktop to see what else there was to Derek Hale.

He had been looking through files for at least another half hour when he heard a car door close in the driveway.

Fuck, fuck, fuck and fuck!

He leaped from the chair and hoped for his sake that Derek didn’t remember what pages he had left open on his desktop because Stiles certainly couldn’t remember what had been on there when he had woken the computer up. He quickly closed the curtains, quickly glancing out the window to see Chris Argent heading towards the front door of the house, talking animatedly to someone on the phone as he did so. He looked around to make sure there weren’t any other signs that he had been in there and ran out, as quietly as one could run.

He closed the door quietly and didn’t pay much mind to the fact that he had heard the door lock again behind him.

He rushed to his room and had put the door in an acceptable position of being partially open – so that he could have some privacy but so people knew they were allowed to come in – when he heard the front door open.

“Stiles?” he heard Derek’s voice call-out.

The front door closed with a light slam.


	10. Amara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to get right on to writing this one and uploading it as soon as possible because I still feel bad for the last chapter delay. I hope you guys still find the plot for this one interesting so far! I promise, some Sterek moments will pop up soon.

**CHAPTER TEN**

<strike>amara</strike>

Stiles jumped off the bed and rushed to the door of the room.

“Uh…yeah!?” he called back, his heartbeat pounding in his chest with nerves.

“Can you come downstairs for a moment?”

He wasn’t used to Derek asking him to do things, other than repeatedly reminding him to rinse his dishes in the sink. In fact, he just wasn’t used to Derek talking to him all that much. So, with that in the back of his mind, and the guilt of almost being caught in Derek’s bounty hunter office, he rushed down the stairs without an argument, almost tripping down them in his haste.

When he got to the front door, he expected to see Derek and Chris, but he didn’t expect to see a third person standing there – in fact, he did not expect to see a woman with a bloody face standing there, looking around the house in bewilderment and awe.

“Stiles, this is Amara, she’s going to be staying here for a few days.”

* * *

Stiles decided to stay out of the way while Derek and Chris spoke to Amara. He wasn’t sure what they were talking about, whether Derek was bringing out his notebook and showing Amara the four main rules of the house, but Stiles decided not to linger. He headed back upstairs, trying his hardest to not look back at the room that was home to a lot of Derek’s secrets.

He knew he shouldn’t know all of the things he knew now, but he was so curious and wanted to know everything about it – how did he get the job as a bounty hunter? How did he get paid? How had he come to own three separate properties in the same street, and why did he have so many more? What did he do with the properties?

There were more questions than that, but it was starting to give Stiles a headache reflecting on it all.

He looked at the time on his phone – it was 3.45 pm, and he was hoping his dad would be home from work soon. He liked the days when his dad finished at 5-6.30, and he needed it to be one of those right now. Because he was worried that Derek would figure out in the next hour or so that Stiles had gone into his office, and that the sour-wolf would rip him limb from limb for doing so.

There was no doubt that Derek was going to, but hopefully, with the sheriff of Beacon Hills in the house, it would only be an injury and not certain death.

There was a ping from the desktop – he’d forgotten that despite the screen being asleep, he had left his email open and had done so for the last few days. He hadn’t wanted to miss any in case he had managed to catch the interest of an employer. So far that hadn’t happened yet, but once again, with the familiar notification sound, he allowed himself to hope that something had come his way.

He shook the wireless mouse and the screen awoke, and sure enough, there was an email sitting in his inbox, with a subject title that made his eyes widen and his heartbeat speed up with excitement.

**IN RESPONSE TO YOUR RESUME…**

** _Hello Mieczyslaw Stilinski (or should I call you Stiles?)_ **

** _I found your resume online and thought you would be the perfect fit for the vacant position I recently advertised. I know you didn’t directly apply for the job, but I hope you will take my offer into consideration. The job position will only be open for a limited time, so I ask that you contact me as soon as possible. _ **

** _I would like to set up an interview and talk to you about the position and what your job would require._ **

** _Hope to hear from you soon,_ **

** _Kind Regards,_ **

** _Desmond O’Riordan._ **

* * *

Derek was sitting down across from Amara. Chris was upstairs somewhere – Derek hadn’t paid too much attention to when the man had left and had no idea how long he had been up there for but knowing Chris he had either gone to use the bathroom or was in the library going through all the books that Derek had. More often than not, Derek would go upstairs to find books missing from collections, collections that probably cost more money than Chris’s house. But Derek wasn’t concerned – he knew the books were in good hands, and sure enough, they would always eventually turn up back on the shelf, either weeks or months later.

Though, Derek did get a little concerned by the fact that it seemed especially easy for Chris to break into his house to return the books. But that was something to think about later.

Amara hadn’t been willing to come with them. She had been much more interested in setting fire to the warehouse with Lloyd, and even herself, in it. But Derek had tried avoiding that.

He didn’t know whether Lloyd was alive, but when they had left, the man had been faced down on the ground with blood pooling out of his nose, onto the mix of gravel and dirt. The man had had claw marks in his shoulder some bruising here and there. Derek might have stood there for a moment to determine whether his heart was still beating, but they hadn’t had the time – Chris had wanted to leave as soon as Lloyd had shown a sign of weakness.

Amara was now sitting across from Derek, levitating a teaspoon with her fingers. She didn’t seem aware that she was doing it, and that Derek was openly looking at the hovering spoon with a look of wonder and admiration.

The teaspoon fell, and clattered on the table, causing Derek to jump. He looked at Amara, who was looking at him with slight amusement. But there was still apprehension in her eyes. Chris, nor Derek, had had the chance to explain to her why exactly they needed her here. Derek appreciated her compliance in the matter, but he did wonder why she hadn’t bothered to ask any questions.

“So…” Derek said slowly, trying to look Amara in the eyes, but there was something about them that made Derek uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure whether it was the powerful green colour, or just knowing that this woman could more than likely turn him into wolf ashes.

Amara sighed, “you bring me here, but now you’re too awkward to start up a conversation?” she snorted with amusement, “great hospitality skills you have there.”

Amara’s attitude reminded him greatly of Stiles, back when he had first met the awkward teen. Back when he had been sixteen, he had more weight on him and less hair. He had been a lot more sarcastic, to the point of harsh, and he had shown more often than not, evident dislike and distrust of Derek.

He didn’t know when he and Stiles had gotten to the point where they had now – neither disliked the other strongly, there was mutual respect, and Stiles obviously trusted Derek enough to live in his house.

It was refreshing.

“I’m not known for being hospitable,” Derek stated simply, “and I’m sure this isn’t what Chris had in mind when he came to question you. I don’t think he was expecting Lloyd to be so unnecessarily cruel.”

Amara made another sound of amusement, “I’m sorry you’re so shocked by your buddy – Lloyd was it? Being so harsh. But that is every experience I’ve had with a hunter,” her voice was filled with venom, “I can’t think of any part of my kind that has had a pleasant experience with you lot.”

Derek shook his head, “I’m not a hunter, and personally I’ve never met Lloyd. Chris knows him.”

Amara looked confused for a moment before moulding her face back into a mask of cool collectiveness, “if you’re not a hunter, then what are you-,” she paused, “ah. That would explain the marks you left on Lloyd. It wasn’t knives – you’re a werewolf,” she laughed, a slightly bitter laugh, “a werewolf and a hunter – friends. That…that’s truly sitcom worthy.”

While Derek wasn’t exactly sure what he and Chris’s friendship status was, that wasn’t the point he was willing to argue, “Chris isn’t a hunter,” Derek said, placing his hands on the table in front of him. He noticed how Amara’s eyes flickered to look at them apprehensively, but Derek didn’t look into her eyes for too long as he still found them unsettling.

“I’ve seen him before, working against my kind, so I don’t know what he’s told you-.”

“Not _anymore_,” Derek corrected himself, putting emphasis, “he dropped that gig a year ago.”

There was silence between the two of them. It wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable silence. Derek could tell Amara was trying to think of a billion ways to leave right now, and while Amara wasn’t physically restrained in any way, it was oddly flattering to know that she still thought there would be a struggle if she were to try anything. Her eyes moved and looked at every doorway – most of the doors were closed, but Derek had the feeling she had the ability to peer pass the heavy, chestnut coloured wood.

The sound of someone coming down the stairs made them both look up in time to see Chris heading towards them, holding two heavy books.

“I’m borrowing these,” Chris grunted, putting the books on the table and sitting down beside Derek.

“Polite of you to ask,” Derek quipped.

“Such an old married couple,” Amara rolled her eyes. She rolled her eyes harder when Chris sputtered and started to defend himself, “it was a joke, sheesh,” she laughed, though amusement didn’t really spread to any of her other features, “now, are either of you going to explain why I’m here, or am I allowed to leave?”

Chris pushed the books aside, which had been stacked up and covering a part of Chris’s face, “no, you’re not allowed to leave. I asked if you sensed any mages in town- now I ask, do you sense any in the house.”

There was the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, and Derek knew they could only belong to one person. He sighed, Stiles had always had this comical sense of timing, and right now was the worst time for him to have it.

He reached the bottom of the stairs, carrying some plates and cups, balancing them on top of each other precariously. He noticed all of them sitting at the dining room table, looking at him.

“Wha-,” one of the glasses fell off the stack of dishes and landed on the floor with a loud smash. The sound was so loud that even Stiles himself jumped, causing Derek to worry that there would be more broken dishes to follow.

Stiles hastily and repetitively apologised, until the words didn’t make much sense anymore. Derek got up from his seat at the table and tried to clean up the glass that had made a mess on the dining room floor.

Amara started giggling.

“Yes?” Chris asked, sounding mildly irritated.

She tipped her chin towards the commotion with a look of amusement evident on her face. Her eyes were sparkling slightly, and there was some colour in her face where there hadn’t been before.

“There’s one.”


	11. Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I just want to say I appreciate the comments and the kudos and bookmarks so much! It means the world to me! I was feeling super creative today and wrote his large chapter while my fiancee and I babysat her little sister. I hope you enjoy this chapter! I'll try and upload another one as soon as possible.

**CHAPTER 11**

<strike>nightmares</strike>

Derek lay in his bed that night with a million different thoughts running through his head. He was swimming - no, more like drowning – in new information that was changing his view of everything around him. When Amara had admitted to Stiles being a mage – thankfully in a way that Stiles didn’t have to find out the truth then and there – he had felt the need to laugh. He knew that some weird things had happened around Stiles all his life, he even knew that some weird things had happened since the two Stilinski men had moved into his home. But putting it down to magic? That seemed like taking it a bit too far. In his mind, Stiles and the strangeness that followed had nothing to do with magic, and more to do with the fact that Stiles was known for being chaotically clumsy.

But chaotically clumsy didn’t spontaneously ignite your lounge room, risking filling the entire house with flames, and he didn’t suspect Stiles would do it on purpose, as the boy had been in danger when Derek had gotten to the room.

But imagining dorky Stiles with magical abilities was far beyond Derek’s level of comprehension – because that just didn’t make sense. It sounded like something maybe Stiles would dream of – it had always been known that Stiles held a little bit of resentment for simply being the human with a baseball bat in the pack. Stiles being a mage just didn’t sound like something that would become a reality.

Derek didn’t know how to deal with it.

* * *

No matter how many times they occurred, Stiles still wasn’t used to the nightmares. The feeling of the room heating up around him. The sound of flames, of wood creaking as it weakened, the sound of glass smashing as the heat became unbearable, so all it could do was explode. These were sounds he heard in the house, his childhood home, the night it had all burned down. The sounds had scared him, it had made the situation too real.

_Stiles in his dream was standing in the kitchen. There was a sound of metal warping as the flames hit the fridge. He was standing in the middle, just looking around at everything as it caught fire. Picture frames shattered and images caught fire. The plastic on their dining chairs melted, and metal a red-hot colour._

_He looked down at his feet, noticing how the flames seemed to avoid his ankles. He looked around him and noted that he was the only thing in the room that wasn’t on fire. He reached out a hand towards the flames, though he didn’t have to reach far. As he attempted to run his hands through the flames, they dodged him. Flames ran through his fingers like locks of hair, but nothing burnt. There were no blisters on his fingers as he pulled back, intending to inspect any damage that might have been caused. _

_There was another sound, something loud that hit his ears painfully, and as he looked forward, towards the sound of the noise, a large fireball was coming right at him, towards his face. _

Stiles awoke with a start, his eyes opening wide, only to be assaulted with the brightness of the naked flame. He jumped back with a yelp and hit his head, hard, on the wall. But he noticed as he backed up that the flame got smaller. Looking past the flame, he noticed that it was a small flame being held in the palm of the hand of a woman.

“Hey-I-what the hell are you doing in here?!” Stiles didn’t even know where to begin his questioning but asking why Amara was sitting on the end of his bed with flames in her hand seemed to be a good place to start.

“Sorry for startling you,” Amara said. She moved her hand and the flames weakened slightly before stopping altogether. The room's new darkness was comforting, and the absence of heat made Stiles relax again into his sheets – before remembering that he was to be angry at Amara.

Stiles shook his head, “why are you here?” he asked, trying to sound less angry this time – not that he didn’t feel absolutely furious, “and why did you put a flame in my face.”

“I was fascinated,” Amara said, shrugging, “I’ve never had a nightmare before…I didn’t realise our faces in our sleep managed to convey so much emotion.”

Alarm bells were ringing loudly in Stiles’ head, but he didn’t say anything in response. Amara shuffled forward and held out her hand.

“I didn’t really get the chance to introduce myself to you earlier. My name is Amara.”

Looking at the hand, there was nothing to show that there had been naked flames in it just a moment earlier. There was no black mark, no burns, and blisters. There was a part of Stiles that wondered if he had been imagining it. But no – it had felt so real. So hot.

He leaned forward to shake her hand, not out of politeness, but to feel the temperature of her hand. It was surprisingly cold.

He looked over at his phone. The screen was ‘Always on Display’ and showed the time to be 3 am.

“You really think three in the morning is a good time to introduce yourself?” Stiles mumbled, tired just from seeing what time it was. There were so many more hours left for him to get a decent amount of sleep, and with every minute Amara sat there, looking at him curiously, he lost a chance to enjoy unconsciousness, “also, maybe when introducing yourself, don’t wake them up by putting fire in their face.”

Amara’s lips turned upwards at the corners at Stiles’ comment, “I don’t think the flames were what woke you up. I think it was the nightmare,” she stated. It did irritate Stiles, but he tried to not let it on as she moved forward a little more and asked a question that Stiles had absolutely no intention in answering, “what were you having a nightmare about?”

Stiles shook his head, “nuh-uh, I’m not having this conversation,” he said. He moved to the side of the double bed that Amara wasn’t sitting on and laid back down, “now if you don’t mind,” he said, closing his eyes, “I’m gonna catch up on the rest of my beauty sleep.”

He didn’t hear Amara leave, as almost instantly after he had said the word ‘sleep,’ he had fallen into it.

* * *

Amara looked down at the young man, her heart filling with feelings of pity. The boy had no idea of the power he possessed. That, if he had wanted her to leave so badly, he simply could have thrown her out of the room with a flick of a finger. Hell, it’s exactly what her father would have done in that situation, and the man hadn’t shown hesitation in the past. All throughout her childhood she had been magically flung rooms as if she were nothing more than a lightweight object. This had led to many broken bones in her childhood, all of which had been instantly healed by her mother, who had always had strong healing abilities but had gained more and more practice through Amara’s childhood.

As she looked down at Stiles’ she could tell that he was tired. The dark circles under his eyes indicated a lack of sleep. The greasiness of his hair and the thin boniness of his wrists indicated that he overall wasn’t taking care of himself. She couldn’t tell whether this was due to his nightmares, whatever they may be about, or whether this was due to his coming into being a mage. Some people didn’t make it through the transition well. Her brother hadn’t. He had ended up taking it very, very poorly.

“now if you don’t mind,” he said, shaking her out of her observations, “I’m gonna catch up on the rest of my beauty sleep,” he mumbled, sounding exhausted.

She waved a hand quickly over his body and was satisfied when the room filled with tiny snores.

There was no way the man would wake – he would sleep until she felt the need to remove it, and she didn’t intend on doing so until at least ten in the morning. She hoped that would be enough to make him feel motivated to look after himself. It was never good, for anyone involved, to have a tired mage walking around. They were prone to accidental spurts of magic. It started off clumsy, but the more their condition worsened, the more violent their magic turned.

She was hoping that, if she kept a close eye on him, that wouldn’t have to happen with Stiles.

* * *

Derek woke to his phone ringing on the glass bedside table. He opened his eyes and glared at the phone, unsure whether he was glaring out of anger or an attempt to see who was calling him. The screen said ‘Chris,’ so he quickly sat up in his bed, grabbed the phone and answered it.

“What’s wrong?” Derek asked immediately.

“_No hi? You’re so polite._”

Derek rolled his eyes, “you don’t do social calls. What’s wrong?”

“_I was reading through your dads’ notes again_,” Chris responded with a sigh, “_he was working on trying to find a particular mage, apparently he’s been missing for years after his house was destroyed. By a pack of wolves._”

Derek started picking at his thumbnail with his teeth, “I don’t like where this is going…”

“_I don’t know which pack was involved – your dad didn’t write anything about that. But the family vanished completely, and your dad was worried that they might spring up for revenge at some point._”

“Okay…”

“_Stop chewing your thumbnail – I’m worried about Amara and her intentions._”

Derek snorted, “she got taken against her will. I don’t think she intended to end up being ‘rescued’ by you and being dragged back to my house.”

There was a loud sigh. He knew that Chris often had a cause for concern and was often right in these things, but there was a part of Derek that thought this was a huge leap to incriminate someone for absolutely no reason. He knew Chris didn’t trust Amara as far as he could throw her – nor did Derek if he was honest with himself. But if she was willing to help with what was going on with Stiles…he wanted to try and give her that chance to prove herself.

Over the phone, Derek heard Chris park and stop his car. Before Derek could ask where Chris had been this early in the morning, he heard a loud knock on the front door of the house. The knock echoed through the speaker on the phone.

“You could at least warn me first,” Derek muttered, hanging up before Chris could come up with a smart-ass response.

* * *

Chris was sipping on a coffee he had made while reading some more of the books in Derek’s library. He had a notepad in front of him that had started out empty, but now had at least five to six pages of information and notes scrawled through it.

“For someone who is so amazing at research, how the hell did you manage to drop out of high school?” Derek asked mockingly from where he stood in the kitchen. Chris’s response was to flip him off, causing Derek to snort as he buttered some toast for himself.

He was tired, he hadn’t slept too well and being awoken so early hadn’t helped him feel any more well-rested. He would love nothing more than to leave Chris to his own devices and go back upstairs to lay in his bed. But something told him that that was a rude thing to do. Even though he wouldn’t really consider Chris as a ‘guest’ in his home anymore. He was a guest in the same way that fleas were a guest in his fur during the spring.

“Sometimes, your dad was a bit of a mad scientist in all this supernatural stuff,” Chris muttered. Even though Chris had said ‘your dad,’ he wasn’t entirely sure whether what was spoken had meant to be heard by him.

“What do you mean?” Derek asked anyway.

Chris had known his father for a while before they had gone their separate ways due to their heritage. His dad had to commit to the pack, and Chris had gone his own way – joining his family of hunters. Before that, they had been quite good friends, and Derek was always interested to learn more about his family. Chris regularly just spewed out stories about Derek’s father, and Derek listened to them, trying not to show how eager he was.

Chris shrugged, turning a page in the book he was reading, “every week he was writing in this thing. Doing research on more species, and he was constantly wondering how everyone could just…co-exist.”

Chris sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “in a way, all your dad ever wanted was peace. I’m almost certain that you’re the same. But, I’m a realist,” he closed the book and grabbed another one before taking a long sip of his coffee, “all these species can’t co-exist. Hell; people who are unaware of the supernatural still refuse to accept people for having different skin colours, or for loving people of the same gender.”

Derek didn’t know whether or not it was a strong desire for peace that he felt. It was more just a strong desire for the drama around him to stop. But he supposed, in a way, they were the same thing.

He cleared his throat before taking a bite of buttery toast.

He heard footsteps coming down the stairs and he made a mental bet with himself as to whether it would be the sheriff, Stiles or Amara. He had guessed Amara but was still unsurprised when his eyes registered the familiar tan colour of the sheriff’s uniform.

“Morning,” Noah said, sounding as exhausted as Derek felt. The older man yawned and made a beeline between the island and the counter, for the coffee machine.

Derek made a muffled sound, that sounded like ‘good morning,’ as he continued to chew on his toast. Chris said something that sounded like a greeting, but once again, his nose was between the pages of a book.

“How long are you working today?” Derek asked, putting down his plate and turning to look at the sheriff. He took in the older man’s appearance. His uniform was a bit of a wrinkly mess, and his shoes probably needed a good shine, but what concerned Derek the most was the dark circles under his eyes, and the way his face didn’t seem to have its usual hope in it.

Noah shrugged and looked into his coffee mug as he answered, “there hasn’t been a lot of cases lately, but that just means I’m being urged into going through the files and files of cases we have unfinished. Towards the end of the month, someone’s going to be coming in to keep an eye on me and see if I’m still fit for the job.”

He tried to sound nonchalant about the threat of losing his job due to incompetence, but Derek could hear the concerned undertones in the older man’s voice. It would be a truly unfortunate time for Noah to lose his job, considering he was trying his hardest to save up money for a place to live. Derek had tried his hardest to take the stress off him by trying to let the man know that he and his son were allowed to stay here for as long as they liked. Without explicitly saying the words. Too much generosity from him might give the older, and even the younger, Stilinski a heart attack.

“It’s just difficult when you’re living in a town full of supernatural monsters,” Noah said, sounding slightly amused, “there are so many cases that are solved by knowing what I know – but if I said what I knew, I’d be thrown into Eichen House.”

Derek nodded, there was no denying that.

It wasn’t long after the sheriff had finished his coffee and left the house that Amara decided to grace Derek and Chris with her presence. She came down looking clean and less wounded than she had yesterday, and in a change clothes that resembled some of the stuff, his sisters used to own.

“Where’d you get the clothes from?” Derek asked, “I don’t remember you bringing any luggage with you.”

Amara smirked, “that might be because I was kidnapped from my home. I was in the middle of having a bath too, the bastards,” she said. She shrugged, “I got them from Stiles. He said I could borrow some of the girl’s clothes that he’d gotten from the donation bags. He was just going to re-donate them anyway.”

With good timing, as always, Stiles came down the stairs in a shirt that was too baggy for him and jeans that looked like they would fall down with every step he took if it wasn’t for the belt he had on.

Derek looked at the pair and the clothing they wore and roared with laughter.

This startled Chris into knocking his mug – both his mug and the coffee remaining landed on the floor with a terrible smash, and when Derek stopped laughing and managed a glance at the two still standing near the stairs, Amara looked confused, and Stiles looked oddly terrified.

“What’s so funny, if you don’t mind my asking,” Amara said, sounding a little offended.

Chris looked behind him too, to see what the fuss was about, and looked at what Stiles was wearing, and then looked at Derek.

“Ahhh…” Chris rolled his eyes. He sat up and headed to the kitchen, presumably for paper towels, to clean up the mess.

“You got those from the charity center, right?” Derek asked, still looking amused.

Stiles, being the only one that could answer the question, nodded.

“They’re my old clothes,” Derek said, smirking.

Amara cocked up a brow, while Stiles’ face turned red.

“What,” she said, “these as well?” she indicated towards the crop top and tight jeans she was wearing.

“No,” Derek said, shaking his head. He rolled his eyes – the outfit Amara was wearing was one he had seen often in his youth when Laura had been in the middle of her rebellious stage. She’d often worn the outfit with a pair of high heels that made their mother have a heart attack every time Laura wore them. But he was pretty sure those heels had been lost at a party Laura had snuck out to one night, “those belonged to my older sister – Laura.”

“I thought that these clothes smelled like old sweat and protein shakes,” Stiles muttered, looking down at the oversized Henley and expensive-looking jeans as if it all made sense now.

Derek rolled his eyes at the quip, “nice try,” he said, “I washed everything before I donated it, and they would have washed them again before allowing someone to take them.”

Stiles didn’t comment as he headed into the kitchen with the intention of pouring himself a bowl of cereal, while Amara headed towards where Chris was cleaning his mess on the floor. She vanished the dripping paper towel, the rest of the coffee mess and then took a moment to repair the mug, all before Chris had registered the paper towel was no longer in his hand. Chris looked up at Amara with wide, surprised eyes, while Amara looked at him with wicked amusement.

“But you’re never going to fit those clothes if you don’t have some protein shakes,” Derek muttered, with the intention of only Stiles hearing hit. He turned to look, and to Derek’s amusement, it looked like Stiles was ready to throw the bowl at his head.

* * *

It was later that night. For dinner, it had been busier than Derek had been used to. For a long time, dinner time was just an affair where Derek would make himself a bowl of cereal and head into his office to get some of the paperwork done. That hadn’t been the case since Stiles and Noah had moved in and it definitely hadn’t been the case tonight, as Amara was still here, and Chris had decided to stay for dinner before heading home.

Derek, not accustomed to cooking for a crowd, ordered some takeout instead – this way he wasn’t at fault if nobody liked the food.

After dinner, Chris had gone home, saying he’d probably be back the next day. Amara had headed upstairs to the room she had been given, and from upstairs Derek could hear her moving something. He didn’t bother heading upstairs to question what she was doing and why.

He was sitting in the lounge room, the recently burnt one, and was ignoring the smell and the marks on the walls in favor of watching TV. He was simply watching the news, as he wasn’t really in the mood for anything else, and he was laying there paying little attention to the newscaster and more attention to the conversation that was currently taking place at the dining room table.

“I have an interview tomorrow,” Stiles said. He was sitting at the table across from his dad, in the same seats that had been sitting in during dinner – as they hadn’t gotten up since. Their food was still in front of them, and every so often Derek could hear the scrape of a fork as one of them continued to eat their meal.

“What for?” Noah asked, sounding hopeful.

Stiles moved a glass on the table. Derek assumed the silence was due to the younger Stilinski having a drink.

“Bookstore,” Stiles said, putting the glass down, “there’s one near the mall that’s hiring, and they looked at my resume and contacted me. I didn’t apply for it, but it doesn’t sound like the worst job in the world.”

“You didn’t apply?” Noah’s voice sounded wary.

“On the site, I applied from, I had my resume set to public, so that way any potential employer can look at it – not just jobs I personally apply for,” Stiles responded to his dad’s tone with a reassuring one, “it’s not a scam I don’t think. It’s just a new bookstore opening up. I have some interview clothes, but I’m worried they’re going to be too big for me,” he paused, “did you know the donated clothes used to belong to _Derek_?”

Derek stopped listening to the conversation with amusement and turned his head back to the news. It had been muted so that Derek could hear the conversation better, but when he saw the headline on the news, he quickly reached for the remote to unmute the reporter.

The reporter was speaking about another fire in Beacon Hills, another fire that had burned down a house in the area. But unlike what had happened with the Stilinski house, nobody had survived the fire. A family of four were dead – they showed a family picture. It looked to be a Hispanic family – a man and a woman in their late thirties, early forties, a boy maybe a year or two younger than Stiles and a little girl. They showed another photo of the children – the teenage boy in a hoodie with ‘Beacon Hills High’ captioned on it.

Obviously, the volume on the TV had been a little loud, as a startled gasp behind him made him jump in his seat on the couch. Stiles and Noah were standing behind the couch, watching the news report with their eyes wide.

“What are the chances of another fire…” Noah said, looking down at Derek as if he might have the answers.

Stiles was watching the TV with wide eyes – he probably recognized the boy on the TV – maybe he was someone on the lacrosse team.

But Derek was sitting there, looking at the TV, his mind all over the place.

Because, really, what were the chances of another fire happening in such a short duration of time, without the two of them being somehow related?

* * *

He knocked on the door and the sound that came from within the room immediately stopped. It was quiet for a moment as if the person inside wanted Derek to think that they had fallen asleep and therefore weren’t available for conversation. But after a few moments, he heard footsteps inside the room, and the door opened a little bit to reveal a blue eye.

“Derek,” Amara said, opening the door wider, “Is everything alright?”

Derek shrugged. He put his hand on the door to hold it open but didn’t go ahead to make his way inside the room. As the door opened wider, he could see that Amara had been moving the furniture. The bed that had originally been against the far wall was now closer to the wall with the window. The desk was sitting at the end of the bed, and the set of drawers that were open and in the middle of having clothes put into them were behind the door. Derek didn’t ask why she had moved the furniture this particular way, but he did, in fact, have questions.

“I just saw something on the news, and I wondered if…I could just ask some questions about…your abilities,” Derek said awkwardly, “but in relation to Stiles.”

Amara shrugged, “I don’t know much about Stiles’ capabilities. But sure – go ahead,” she opened the door even wider, indicating that Derek should come into the room. He did as he was told and followed Amara to the direction of the bed, where she sat down on the edge of it, and Derek sat down on the desk chair.

“Is this about the house fire that killed that family?” Amara asked. Derek cocked up a brow, surprised that the mage already knew. She lifted her phone off the bed and showed Derek through a heavily cracked screen, a news article on the local Beacon Hills newspaper page, talking about the tragedy.

“Yes,” Derek nodded, “I find it unlikely to be cure coincidence that two deadly fires happened in Beacon Hills so close together.”

Amara made a sound in her throat, “do you think I did it?”

Derek had to admit, he had thought about it for a moment, but he had suspected for a long time, especially due to what had happened in the lounge room, that Stiles had accidentally set fire to his own house. So, Amara doing it didn’t really fit the narrative.

“Actually, I suspect Stiles did it.”

* * *

Stiles awoke to his shoulder being tapped repeatedly. He opened his eyes which were teary and burning and he looked towards the person who was tapping him. He couldn’t make anything out in the darkness of the room, other than the fact that the person was male, and not Amara this time. After a few seconds of blinking rapidly, he noticed with a shock that it was Derek sitting on the edge of his bed, looking at him with guarded concern.

“W-what happened, why are you in here?” Stiles asked. He suspected he would have sounded more nervous if he hadn’t been so exhausted.

“I heard you crying,” Derek said, looking a little embarrassed. The door was ajar behind him, but he knew he had left it closed. He wondered just how loudly he had been crying. Or was Derek’s hearing _really _that good?

“Shit,” Stiles muttered. He put his head in his hands, both to hide his face and just so he wouldn’t have to look at Derek. He wasn’t used to a concerned Derek, and in his head, it just made no sense right now. Derek should have at least made one joke at his expense by now or called him weak-willed or something alpha-insult like – but he hadn’t. And while a part of him was appreciative of a more empathetic Derek, who was willing to let Stiles and his dad live with him for however long they needed and bought groceries and didn’t expect them to contribute to the bills – it was still strange.

The strangeness of the situation made Stiles start to tear up again. He recalled how strange it was to be without a place to call home. Without all the stuff in his room. Everything he owned turned to ash. To be wearing the hand-me-downs of someone he used to despise, someone he was intimidated of. Hell, he’d somehow almost burned the guy's house down and he hadn’t even yelled at him.

All evidence that his mom had even existed was gone…

Before Stiles could pull himself together. He let out a little whimper and buried his head even deeper in his arms. The emotions running through had been building up during his stay in Derek’s home and now, he was starting to fall apart, at least, that’s how it felt like.

Stiles flinched as a hand touched his back and started rubbing small circles comfortingly. After the initial startle, he found himself appreciating the comforting touch and allowed himself to focus on it to get himself to stop crying. He could hear that Derek was saying something, his voice deep and comforting, but couldn’t hear what the other man was saying. Just that he wasn’t being harsh. Which was all that Stiles needed? He needed to the reminder that his overwhelming feelings about everything were valid.

He needed to not feel like an idiot.

He eventually lifted his head again, using the sleeve of his pyjama shirt to wipe his eyes. He avoided blowing his nose into the sleeve, only for Derek’s benefit, because right now he didn’t want the other man to think him disgusting.

“Do you need a glass of water?” Derek asked calmly. Stiles looked at him. Derek was giving him a look that was concerned, but he didn’t look alarmed, afraid, anything. Like he had been expecting this.

Stiles shook his head, “no, it’s fine,” he said, his voice sounding strained. He cleared his throat, “thanks,” he said. His voice sounding stronger this time.

‘_Jesus Christ- don’t sound so pathetic Stiles,_’ he thought to himself, wiping at one of his eyes once more.

Derek stopped rubbing circles on his back and looked at him for a moment, before asking whether Stiles was going to be okay. Stiles didn’t know how to answer that question. He wasn’t okay, and he didn’t know whether he would be okay for the rest of the night. There was so much going on in his head at that moment, he didn’t know whether he was going to manage going back to sleep. Was this how he was going to be for the rest of his life? And to think, nobody had even died in the fire…not like the family on the TV…

Not like the Hale family, so many years ago.

He felt so stupid for crying and carrying on like this, for being so traumatized, when he knew Derek’s heartbreaking story of how he lost the majority of his family members. The only family member he had alive was his stupid shitty evil Uncle, named Peter. At least Stiles had his dad.

“You okay to get back to sleep?” Derek asked when Stiles didn’t answer him. He snapped out of his thought process and nodded. He didn’t want to keep Derek awake all night out of some weird obligation to help him.

“Yeah, I’ll be all good,” Stiles muttered, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Derek nodded. He sat there for a moment, looking at Stiles’ face. Stiles wondered what was going through the man’s head. But he didn’t give anything away as he got up and headed towards the door.

“Goodnight Stiles,” Derek said, looking back at him.

“G’night Derek,” Stiles said, yawning in the middle of it.

Derek gave him another small smile before closing the door, leaving him alone in the dark, quiet room once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: I realised a few hours after uploading the chapter, that in my excitement to upload it I completely forgot to manually add the breaks in the story! That would have been super hard to read, I'm so sorry! I hope me fixing it helps it run better.


	12. UPDATE

Hey friends! Super sorry for the delay with the next chapter. I still plan on completing this Fanfic. I have just been struggling a lot with my mental health and my studies. I am constantly very, very exhausted. This Corona drama obviously hasn't helped like, at all. 

I hope you guys are still interested in this story, and I hope to have another chapter up for you all soon. 

Stay safe x


	13. Give Me Therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a long time, but if you're still reading I appreciate your dedication and interest in what might become a series x

Chapter Twelve

<strike>give me therapy</strike>

It had been just over a week since Derek had entered Stiles’ room to find him crying in his sleep. Stiles tried to not think about it too much because when he did reflect on the moment he had been awoken by the concerned werewolf, his cheeks would heat up and he would drown in feelings of self-loathing and embarrassment. 

Derek hadn’t been acting too differently around him, other than the occasional glance to see whether Stiles was okay. But otherwise, things seemed to be fine between the two. He wasn’t acting like Stiles was a burden, or that he was pathetic. 

But that’s all Stiles felt. He felt like a child for crying in his sleepover nightmares that often made no sense to him. It would start off with the fire, and then voices that he couldn’t understand. 

Either way - was it really worth crying about?

Stiles constantly reminded himself - no. Not really. Nobody had died in the fire, they had just lost a lot - all - of their stuff. But it wasn’t as if his dad had died. Derek had been a lot more unfortunate in his family home fire. 

Despite the fact that Derek hadn’t been treating him any different that week, something must have been said to his dad, for on Friday when the man came home from work, he looked Stiles up and down and said, “don’t get mad at me.”

Stiles frowned, putting down the book that he had been reading, “Why…” he slowly said, “would I get mad at you?”

“I’ve booked you an appointment with a psychologist.”

Stiles felt dread enter his stomach.

He stood up from where he had been sitting from the couch. He was the same height, if not slightly taller than his old man, but with his wiry frame, it’s not as if he was intimidating.

“I can’t do that,” Stiles said, sounding slightly panicked, “we can’t afford that-.”

Noah sighed, “What I can and cannot afford is none of your concern. You need to get help. You’ve been struggling since the accident and,” his dad looked him up and down again, “have you not noticed that you’ve lost a tonne of weight? That you look like you’ve barely gotten any sleep?” 

The older man sighed and rubbed a tired hand over his face, “if I didn’t know any better, I would think you were getting possessed by that thing again.”

Stiles felt a shiver go up to his spine. He didn’t like remembering that time. It had been a dark time in his life, and he still hadn’t recovered from the trauma that had given him, let alone the house fire. He had been responsible for the deaths of two people - one of them being a close friend of his. 

He shook his head, “I’m fine. I’m me, I’m just…” he shrugged, looking at the wall behind his dads’ head, “I’m stressed.”

There was a knock behind him and his dad looked over his shoulder, just as Stiles swung around. 

Derek was standing, looking awkward, in the doorway to the lounge. He put his hands in his pockets, “I don’t want to interrupt.”

“Then don’t,” Stiles muttered before he could stop himself. He was pissed off because Derek had obviously said something. He had hoped the incident could have stayed between the two of them.

“Sheriff, you have a missed phone call-,” Derek looked back towards the kitchen as the sound of Noah’s ringtone rung throughout the room. 

Noah quickly glanced at Stiles before heading toward the kitchen at a rushed pace. Derek moved to the side slightly to ensure Noah could get past but didn’t move to follow the sheriff. Instead, continued to stand in the doorway.

“Why did you tell him?” Stiles asked, not meaning to let his feelings of betrayal out in his voice. 

Derek sighed, “I wanted to try and do the best thing for you.” 

Stiles walked closer to where Derek was standing, his arms hanging awkwardly by his sides. He didn’t want to get mad, he knew that Derek had done a lot for the two of them and if Stiles were to get mad, the man would have right to throw the two of them out of his house and onto their asses. But even though he hadn’t said to Derek to not tell his dad anything about that night, he still just felt hurt. 

“He can’t afford therapy for me,” Stiles said, running a hand through his hair, “not when we’re trying to save money to get back on our feet and out of your hair-.”

“He’s not paying for it,” Derek said. 

A funny look passed over Derek’s face. If Stiles had blinked, he surely would have missed it. 

Stiles frowned, “you’re paying for my therapy?”

Derek didn’t respond. 

“I still don’t understand why you’re doing all of this for us,” Stiles murmured, “I feel like the world is going mad.”

Derek didn’t say anything. He turned around and headed through the kitchen and up the stairs. The older man didn’t even look back at Stiles, leaving Stiles feeling confused, and unfortunately like he had said something wrong. 

* * *

  
Stiles checked his emails - he had responded to Desmond’s email not too long ago and was waiting for a response with more information any day now. Today seemed to be the day because as he logged in, he saw an unread email highlighted with Desmond’s email address attached. Stiles clicked on it quickly, and read the contents;

_Hello Stiles, _

_I’m happy to see you’re so eager! I own a coffee shop in the middle of the Beacon Hills’ main shopping district - we’re also a bookshop! We just lost one of our cashiers, who was also in training to become a barista. This is the perfect opportunity for on the job training and specifically fantastic for students. If you’re still interested in this opportunity, we can sort out a time where you can look at the store and work out a contract together._

_Regards,_   
_Desmond O’Riordan._

Stiles sat there, mouth slightly agape. This was perfect, and it partially sounded like he’d already got the job - if he chose to accept it. Stiles grabbed his mouse and clicked the reply button; he would be a fool to not take advantage of this opportunity. Especially with college slowly approaching, it would be ideal if he could undergo some barista training. Coffee shops were everywhere on university campuses. 

He quickly typed out a reply saying he would try and get to the coffee shop the next day, a Friday, and that the opportunity sounded perfect for him. 

* * *

  
That night at the dinner table it was just Stiles and Amara. Noah was working late at the station, and Derek had decided to take his food upstairs to eat, presumably, in his office. 

It was Chinese food that they were consuming that night. Stiles was happily stuffing his mouth with fried rice, while Amara idly swished her chopsticks through the broth of her Wonton soup. 

Stiles cleared his throat, and still, Amara didn’t look up at him. 

“Not a fan of Chinese food?” Stiles asked. He felt awkward speaking to Amara, especially after the incident that had occurred in his room. Waking up to flames in his face wasn’t exactly a great conversation starter. 

Amara shrugged, “never really had it. But that’s not my issue.”

Stiles cocked up a brow in curiosity.

Amara put her chopsticks down beside her bowl and peered at Stiles with curiosity. 

“Why are you so calm when you know they’re lying to your face?” 

Stiles frowned further and put the chopsticks he had been using for his fried rice down. He licked his lips and said, “what do you mean?”

She sighed as if she thought Stiles was the stupidest person in the world at that moment. She pushed her chair back slightly and decided to put her feet on the table - which Stiles was sure that would piss Derek off to no end. Though he was sure he’d seen Chris do it on more than one occasion so he wasn’t too sure. 

“You know they’re keeping things from you, I can tell,” Amara said, “you often sit in your room wondering whether they’re talking about you. Whether they’re talking about what they’re hiding from you. You know things aren’t quite right.”

“Can you read minds or something?” Stiles snapped, “because I gotta say, I really don’t appreciate you just inviting yourself to what's in my head-.”

“I know you’re sensitive to that sort of thing,” Amara said, “but know. I can just tell you’re suspicious of everyone. You don’t want to think your father is hiding things from you but you somehow think he’s hiding the most.”

Stiles looked blankly at her.

She grabbed the lid to the takeaway plastic bowl her soup came in a snapped it back into place, “Stiles. You’re strong. You’re incredibly powerful,” she said, gazing at him knowingly, “but don’t let yourself be naive. You think something is up?” 

Stiles nodded. 

“Say something then.”

* * *

  
Stiles sat in a waiting room that was smaller than his bedroom back at Derek’s house. He was the only one sitting in the waiting room and it made him feel uneasy. His sneakered foot was tapping restlessly on the dark blue carpet that had the occasional colourful spot on it. He glanced briefly at the magazines littering the coffee table - it was a mixture of untidy gossip magazines and health help pamphlets. One peaked out at him, talking about depression and PTSD. He looked away from it just as the door to the office on his left opened. 

“Miecz-…uh…Stilinski?” 

Stiles had already been looking at him. The man was tall with light brown hair. He smiled down at Stiles, a little awkwardly - probably due to completely butchering Stiles’ birth name. 

Stiles stood up and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans, “just call me Stiles.”

The man nodded, his awkward smile withering slightly, and opened the door wider so that Stiles could walk past him and into the room. When he did enter the room, he took notice of his surroundings. There was a desk to his right, and two chairs in the middle of the room facing each other. On the walls were what Stiles assumed were diplomas and other credentials, and a bookshelf with many books. 

“You can sit on the blue chair,” the man said, gesturing to the chair in question. It was a blue chair with wooden backing and what looked to be uncomfortable vinyl covering a foam cushion, that was slightly exposed at the corners. 

Stiles didn’t say anything about the interior design of the place, he just settled down on the chair he was directed to and waited for the man to speak to him. 

“So, Stiles was it?” Stiles nodded, "fantastic.”

He grabbed an empty notepad from the small table beside his chair. He grabbed a pen from his chest pocket and wrote something down. It was probably just a reminder for Stiles’ preferred name but the action still managed to make Stiles feel uneasy. Analyzed. 

“My name is doctor Brantley. But you can call me Egan,” Stiles didn’t say anything. The room was thick with an awkwardness that seemed suffocating. Egan cleared his throat and moved to be more comfortable in his chair, “so, what brings you here today?” the man smiled at him again, this timeless awkward than when he had said his name in the waiting room. 

Stiles shrugged, “I didn’t specifically request therapy. My dad requested it on my behalf. He thinks that I am not okay.”

Another scribble on the notepad and Stiles’ knee started jumping up and down restlessly. 

“Why does he think that you’re not okay?” the man asked, “has an event occurred, or has your mood just changed suddenly?”

Stiles bit his lip. It would be easier just to explain the situation instead of pretending to be okay, especially considering how expensive therapy was. He knew his dad wasn’t paying but it would still be a dick mood to have Derek pay for absolutely nothing.

Letting go of his lip between his teeth, he told the man in front of him about the fire. About losing their home. About the money problems and how slowly, things were starting to look up. That it was enough to make every day seem less daunting but he still felt a little helpless. 

“Hmm…” Egan muttered, writing everything down as Stiles spoke, “so things are looking up. That’s fantastic - that job opportunity sounds like it would be great for you,” Egan remarked, “but there’s something else that you’re not saying. You don’t seem greatly enthusiastic about this change in your life.”

Stiles sat there. He knew there were other things playing on his mind, but with the man in front of him not having much of a supernatural understanding of Beacon Hills, it was too hard to explain everything. The entire story. His fears and his insecurities. 

“I guess I’m just worried that something will go wrong,” Stiles muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, remind me to keep going! I really want to finish this fanfiction.


End file.
